


raising hell (Till It's Heaven)

by Fandine



Series: The Foxhole Court [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Gang Violence, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Muslim Character, Name Changes, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-09-13 23:33:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9146884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandine/pseuds/Fandine
Summary: The road to Heaven was always a long one.(Or: Natalie kills a man and it ends her life. She meets someone who helps her start a new one.)(Or: Stephanie Walker is Muslim.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to all other Muslims who read _All For The Game_ and thought it would've been great if Renee was Muslim. I say this, as if my story is Very Important, which it is not, but at least I hope I'm able to make it enjoyable for you! I want to thank Julia for giving me the first push to do this and to Artemis (@andrewjosminyard on tumblr) for looking through my early, early rough _rough_ draft and fixing my mistakes and being such a huge help, even when I was a mess. All mistakes left in the text are my own.
> 
> This story is made up of three parts. All parts are pre-canon, the first part beginning right after Natalie kills a man. The only other canonical characters in the first part is Stephanie and Dan. The second part will be of her first year(s) with the foxes. The last part will be about the year she meets Andrew. Since it's a pre-canon story I don't think you strictly need to know what happens in the books, besides knowing that exy is a made-up sport in these books. It's like... a more violent version of lacrosse.
> 
>  **Warnings** for referenced childhood sexual abuse and other child abuse/neglect. There will be nothing graphic, you have my word on that. Other warnings are deaths of minor characters at the start, canon-typical violence, referenced drug use/abuse/addiction, ableist language (as in words like st/pid, idi/t etc.), misogynistic language, depiction of panic attacks, paranoia, depression and anxiety.

Eva says, “Please, Nat, when I die, bury the knives with me.” And that is the beginning of the end.

 

### Part I: With the devil at her heels

 

She rubs her hands red trying to wash away the blood. Even after her palms have begun to tingle, she can’t get rid of the slick feeling between her fingers, the lingering itch under her nails. Cries and shouts slip in through the cracked bathroom window, rapid Spanish and English intermingling. Police sirens break out in the distance. _It won’t be long now before someone comes to check in the bathroom_ , she thinks, her grip tightening on the sink.

Forcing herself to loosen her grip finger by finger, Natalie slowly raises her hands to her face and whispers, “Oh God, please, please, God, please forgive me, forgive me, forgive me…”

That’s how the police officers find her, on her knees and her hands covering her eyes.

 

* * *

 

Police Officer Miriam Altaani looks Natalie in the eye when she talks to her, all even voice and polite space between them as usual. Altaani always makes sure she approaches her from the front, never from the side or the back, which, considering, Natalie could appreciate. She’s also the only one who seems to remember that Natalie probably hasn’t eaten for a very long time, and brings her an unopened soda and a wrapped tuna sandwich from the vending machine. The other police officers look at her in their peripheral sight, or at her ear, or down at some documents when they talk to her, if they even bother deigning to acknowledge her existence.

Johnson is one such police officer.

“Okay,” he says to her, sitting down across from her. “Here’s the deal, sweetheart. You’re going to jail, there’s no question about this. This is it. A stupid lawyer might try defense of infancy, but the thing is, you’re fifteen. You are culpable. So you’re going down for this as manslaughter, if not murder. Now, I propose a deal. You listen, because I think you’ll like this.”

He leans in over the table as if he’s going to tell her a secret. Natalie slouches deeper into her seat, staring at the empty space over his head as he drones on.

“You tell us the names of your bosses, your buyers and handlers of this whole operation, names, locations, the whole shebang. If you cooperate to your fullest extent, we might cut down on your sentence.”

Johnson leans back into the seat with a smug smile, an ankle over the other knee and the palms of his hands pressed together. There’s a spark in his eyes, the one Natalie has seen in countless other men who bring guns to knife fights. However this goes, he’s certain that he has the upper hand. But Natalie knows her rights, and most importantly, she knows what’s going to happen if they let her out on the streets. She killed one of the top dogs in the southeastern parts of the city. There’ll be a power play in place tonight, a motion in the power ladder while the streets erupt into immediate chaos. Her mother has long ago disowned her in every way but formally and won’t save her. Whatever happens from now on, she’s not a part of the equation. If she is, it’s only as a body in a bag.

Johnson taps his foot, still waiting for an answer, but in response, Natalie only raises her hand to wipe away some spit that landed on her cheek. Johnson’s face falls at the lack of reaction, obviously not what he was expecting.

“You wanna play, kid,” he says, lowering his voice to a hiss. A sudden shift in his stance makes Natalie glance at his hands. He’s not holding anything big enough to be visible, but she’s not sure what he’s packing underneath his jacket. “Well, I have a game for you. It’s a simple guessing game. I state some facts; you guess the outcome.”

He holds up three fingers and ticks them off as he says, “One, we have enough evidence to place you at the place of at least six other related crime scenes, including two murders. Two, it’s your word against three dead bodies, and a body weighs more than your words. Three, a prosecutor worth half of his damn pay can and will make the jury go against you. They’ll say it was a bloodbath, and then they’ll demand for a just punishment. Come on now, guess the outcome. I can promise you it’s not anything you’ve wanted.”

At the sound of _three bodies_ , the world tilts at its axis and spins out of bounds, air rushing in her ears. She realizes no air is going through her lungs the same moment her vision blacks out for a second. She takes a shuddery breath.

She’d hoped against hope there only would be two.

Johnson still stands over her when her vision comes back. She didn’t catch the rest of his words, just faint impressions of them as she fell inside herself, but she reads tension and anticipation in the lines of his body; a cat ready to pounce on its prey.

 _A big fucking pussycat_ , Jim says in her head.

 _If you by pussycat mean a big, bad jaguar_ , a voice in her head replies, sounding just like Eva on her good days, _then yeah, he’s a pussycat._

An unknown variable is more dangerous than a contained one. She’s pretty sure a police officer wouldn’t be able to do anything seriously damaging to a suspect, but she won’t bet on it, not in the way Johnson is looming over her. So in the only way she knows how to contain the unknown, she tilts her head to the side and widens her eyes. “I guess it’s probably not a diploma?”

She’s already pushing the chair backwards, rising to her feet to brace for a fist, a knife, a gun, but Johnson only has time to scowl before the door is kicked in, ricocheting off the wall to make a loud bang. Altaani’s suddenly in the room, pushing Johnson towards the wall, and consequently away from Natalie, all the while yelling at him.

“—are you seriously interrogating a minor, Johnson, without a lawyer present? Tell me, did you actually go through the academy or is the badge for show, huh? This is not how we do this, and wallahi, Welsh is going to hear about this and he’ll send you back to Idaho faster than you can say ‘burned cob’.” She takes a fist of Johnson’s collar and whispers something Natalie can’t hear from across the room. Even so, she can see Johnson’s face and the way it suddenly _pales_. Johnson’s fleeing the room the next second, not even sparing her a glance on the way out, the door closing behind him.

Altaani swirls around to face her, but doesn’t move closer. “This was unacceptable,” she says after a pause. “On our part. I sincerely apologize. Nothing else is going to happen before your lawyer arrives and you get to talk, I give you my word. Understood?”

Natalie nods.

“Good,” Altaani says. Then she slumps a little, the professional mask cracking. “So. I’ll make sure no one else gets near you. You want me to stay, or should I wait outside the door?”

Bowing to pick up the fallen chair, Natalie shrugs and sits. Altaani sighs and plucks on her hijab, seemingly straightening it. Natalie catches the reflected light of metal and finds herself thinking how dangerous it can be to have something sharp like a pin near your temples. She pushes the thought aside and looks away. They stare at opposite directions in silence, before Natalie kicks the other chair in a silent invitation. Altaani raises an eyebrow in something akin amusement, but Natalie only looks back at the gray wall at her side.

Altaani sits and clears her throat. “You should know, Natalie… You should know I was the one who tipped the others of the attempt tonight.”

It takes all Natalie has not to flinch. Instead she slowly turns her head to see Altaani looking straight at her. All even voice and polite space. Right.

“I tried to stop it,” Altaani blurts out, “I really tried. It just took much more time to make them _see_ … But we were too late and I am so sorry you were put in that position. I am so sorry we were too late. I am sorry we always seem to be too late.”

Natalie stares back at Altaani until she breaks eye contact, looking down at the table between them.

“You,” Natalie says – and when did her throat become so sore? – “What are you trying to do?”

“I am trying to apologize,” Altaani says. “For being too incompetent to stop this.”

“No,” Natalie says, shaking her head. She can feel herself smiling, but not the pretty kind. No, this one is all broken adrenaline, the result of a car door scraping along the fence in a swing no car has any business attempting at 160 mph. The incredulous one. “You’re trying to make me a proxy. For your guilt. Your guilt of not being able to stop injustice?”

Altaani looks at her with wide eyes, her lips thinning, and then it hits Natalie. “Really? It’s for the kids? Because you can’t save the kids?”

Click, boom. Altaani looks away.

Natalie laughs. And laughs, and laughs, and laughs. She can’t stop and she ends up with her head on the table, her hands in front of her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds coming out. They begin to sound suspiciously like sobs.

“I can’t,” Natalie says between the hiccups, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I can’t give you what you want. How can I?”

She tilts her head up from the table to see Altaani looking at her with tears in her eyes. “How can _I_?” she says and looks down at her hands.

They still smell like blood.

 

* * *

 

Altaani’s accommodating manner and the knowledge that she’s willing to make Natalie as comfortable as she’s capable of, makes it easy for Natalie to ask her for a favor.

“Anything,” Altaani says.

If it’s her guilt that makes her say so, then Natalie doesn’t feel guilty for asking anything of her. She tells Altaani what she’s looking for and receives a wary look for her trouble.

“Uh, sure,” Altaani says. “But really, there’s some great eating spots just nearby. There’s no need—Is it the money? I can give you some, don’t worry—“

Altaani stops and sighs at whatever shows in her face. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Altaani does what she does best; fights for permission to do as she wants. Then she herds herself and Natalie in to her car, and drives them southeast.

To a McDonald’s.

“I still believe there’s no difference between McDonald’s,” Altaani says, handing Natalie a twenty. “You’ve been to one; you’ve been to them all. There’s one just by the station even.”

Natalie tells her that she knows the people who work at this place and it would be nice to see them again. She can feel Altaani’s eyes on her face, and for a tense moment, Natalie’s afraid that she has seen through the lie. But Altaani just smiles and tells her she’ll wait in the car. That way she’ll be able to make some important phone calls.

The line’s not long at this time of the day – early morning; so early the sun’s not out yet – so Natalie makes her order fast. They tell her to wait five minutes. Natalie asks for the bathroom. She walks towards it. She walks past it, to the backdoor. Then she is out.

Then she is running.

Natalie knows these streets like the back of her hand, has spent countless of hours roaming them, lived in them; seen people die in them, rot in them. She knows the history of these streets, knows what corner connects to which street, which alley gate is a dead end. But most importantly, she knows all the shortcuts.

She uses them now, navigating between buildings and cars according to her mental map, running, even though the cold, clear air rips her throat open whenever she inhales, makes a puff of white vapor when she exhales. It has recently rained; she can smell it from the asphalt and the puddles glitter under the yellow light of the street lamps. She’s careful to run around them.

Counting the seconds, she estimates the time gone by and speeds up a little. Jumping across a fence, she’s at her destination. If she’d taken the normal route, it would’ve taken her at least half an hour. According to her inner clock, she made it in seven minutes.

It’s a park. Technically, it’s a garden. It belongs to the residents living on the ground floor in the apartment building surrounding the area. Since no one actually wants to deal with the responsibility of tending to a garden, it’s mostly treated as a public place.

Just behind the apartment complex, is a building she used to stay in, get her work from her boss. It’s more of a grey concrete block than a building. Her base. Comparing the times she spent at her mother’s house and the base the last years, she would say that the base was her home. It should be closed off, yellow tape surrounding the crime scene, warning everybody off. She isn’t here for that though.

She’s here for the knives.

Knowing that the cops would find her, she’d shucked them off here, making a tiny, shallow hole by one of the trees to dump the three knives. She runs to the tree and begins to dig her shoe in the ground surrounding it. She doesn’t have much time; every second ticking by is a second Altaani gets more suspicious, a second closer to her going inside the restaurant and not finding Natalie there. She doesn’t intend to run from the cops. The way she sees it, she doesn’t have any other alternatives. It’s just.

It’s just, this was Eva’s last wish.

She feels herself getting more frenzied as time goes by and she still doesn’t find the knives. How much time has gone by? Two minutes? Three? Five? She’s lost count, and with that realization, she panics. She falls to her knees and begins to dig, dirt getting under her nails and her fingers soon growing numb from the cold. All the while she digs, she looks around, trying to recall the last time she was here and if it really was under this tree. Could it have been the tree opposite this one? She’s too busy looking around, she doesn’t see the blade before she feels it; nicking the tip of her index finger.

“Shit,” she says under her breath. “Shit, shit, shit.”

She puts the nicked finger to the ground while digging with the other hand, and soon she has them, all three knives, catching and glinting off the light from a nearby street lamp. Two of them are switchblades, easy to put in her back pockets. The third one isn’t. Taking off one of her shoes, she pulls off her sock and puts the knife in it, before she takes two of the many hair elastics on her arm and fastens the knife to her calf. Her pants are baggy enough that no one will notice the extra bulk.

Fixing that problem, she moves to the next one; her finger. She wipes the dirt off on the tall, slightly wet grass before she examines it. It’s not a too deep cut; she’ll survive with a bandage, but she doesn’t have anything on her that will work as one. Her best solution, she figures, is to feign an accident and ask one of the workers at McDonald’s for one.

She takes the finger in her mouth, and with the metallic taste on her tongue, she runs.

Back at the restaurant, she goes straight for the bathroom. With her luck, there should’ve been a line, but for once, something is going her way. She washes her hands to get rid of the dirt, making sure to get water under her nails. The finger doesn’t hurt yet, but she thinks it’s only a matter of time and adrenaline. Once she’s calmed down, she isn’t sure she won’t need something for the pain. Then she washes her face and neck, wiping away the sweat and stress. With a final look in the mirror, she takes a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, before she unlocks the door and walks to the counter.

Altaani’s waiting for her there, talking to one of the workers. They look up at her as she comes closer, both looking concerned.

“Hey,” Natalie says as she gets into their hearing range. “Sorry about that. My period cramps suddenly hit. You know how it is.”

The worker winces, but Altaani only frowns. “That’s the reason you were in the bathroom for more than twenty minutes?”

Natalie widens her eyes. “Wha—I was there that long? Must’ve hit me pretty hard this time, I didn’t even notice.”

The worker makes sympathetic noises as she hands Natalie her bag containing a full meal with a fish wrap. “Hope you get better.”

“Thanks,” Natalie says. “Oh, and hey, if I could get a bandage or a plaster? I don’t know how, but my finger must’ve come near something sharp without me noticing.” She shows her index finger, which has begun oozing blood again.

The worker hurries along to get a bandage. Natalie looks after her and doesn’t turn when she feels Altaani’s eyes boring into the side of her face.

Safely inside the car again, Natalie has just clicked on the seat belt, thinking she actually might get away with this, when Altaani speaks up.

“Okay,” Altaani says. “You’re done, Natalie. Cut the crap and tell me the truth. Where did you go?”

Her heart beats faster, but she pulls on a bemused face, says, “Uh, I was in the bathroom? What, I’m not lying.”

“Uh,” Altaani imitates, “no, you were not, and yes, you are. I don’t buy it.”

“Well,” Natalie says. “Maybe you’ve never had serious period cramps before. I’ve heard it’s hereditary. Guess I’ve got the pain from my mom.”

Altaani tightens her grip on the steering wheel. “I don’t care how bad your period cramps get. What I know for sure is that no period cramps give you green, wet stains on your knees.”

_Shit._

“Uh,” Natalie says. “I fell. The bathroom floor was wet.”

“And what in heaven’s name can cut you in a bathroom?” Altaani says as if Natalie hadn’t spoken. “Please, you’re a terrible liar.”

“I,” Natalie says and doesn’t finish.

Altaani looks over at her. “None of the workers even knew your name. Whatever you have on you, give it to me. For all that is good on this earth, please make my job easier and your case more solid. You cannot honestly be dealing with drugs right now. How can you be so _thoughtless_ —“

“It’s not drugs,” Natalie says.

“Then give it to me,” Altaani says, holding her hand out and her eyebrow raised.

Natalie swallows. “They’re Eva’s. She said she wanted them with her when she—“

Altaani’s eyes soften and she says, hushed, “Natalie. I don’t think she needs it right now.”

With a bowed head, Natalie blinks rapidly and gets the switchblades out of her pockets. When she sees them, Altaani pinches the bridge of her nose and groans.

“Please,” she says, a desperate tone in her voice, “please, tell me none of those were actually involved in the murder, la ilaha illa-llah.”

Natalie wets her lips and shakes her head. “I can’t say that. But Eva’s wish was to have them with her, so—“

“I don’t care! That’s evidence, Natalie, evidence. What were you even thinking?”

Natalie bows her head, looking at the paper bag in her lap as she wrings it between her hands, ripping it. She’s heard Altaani angry before, has heard her raise her voice, but never at herself, never with that tone.

She’s not her mother, she tells herself.

“Do you know what this means? They’ll get you for tampering with evidence. They’ll say you purposely obscured evidence that’s critical to your case. And then they’ll openly question it. They’ll use it against you.” Altaani flings her hands out and Natalie flinches so violently away, her head bumps against the car window. Altaani freezes. The silence is deafening after her outburst. Natalie closes her eyes, as if doing so, she’s also closing Altaani’s eyes, willing her not to have seen her overreaction. But even if Altaani hadn’t already seen, it would be hard to miss Natalie’s breathing, harsh, quick and too loud in the little space between them.

There’s a sudden flurry of movement as Altaani comes back to herself, apologies pouring out of her like an open wound. A click, she’s taken off her seat belt. A click, she’s out the door, muttering curses under her breath. A bang when the door closes. And then silence.

_You’re done, Natalie._

Natalie opens her eyes, careful to just look down at the dashboard. She takes a breath and exhales slowly, looking at the puff of white. It’s winter, Natalie suddenly realizes. 1st of December today. She’s cold, has been for some time, but she doesn’t know if it’s from the weather.

_You’re done, Natalie._

Altaani’s voice rings through her head; there’s no Jim, no Eva, not anymore. Inside her head, outside. Jim’s deep voice telling bad jokes, Eva’s slightly squeaky one giving her unnecessary advice and encouragement.

She sits up and pulls her legs up on the seat, holding around them to rest her head on her knees. She feels the bulge where the third knife is hiding around her shin. She prepared for every scenario but this, and yet, she would’ve thought she’d at least cry. Her eyes are painfully dry, and her bones feel empty and her head heavy.

_You’e done, Natalie._

Yeah. Yeah, she is.

 

* * *

 

Her assigned lawyer greets her and Altaani in her office with a smile and introduces herself as Sinekka Perera. She shows them to some hard seats—made specifically to see people squirm, Natalie thinks, as she slumps in her seat—and the first thing she says to Natalie after she offers them water is,

“ _Three bodies_ , Natalie. Was it really necessary?”

Natalie freezes, the glass of water in her hand slipping between her slack fingers and breaking into a million thousands pieces around her feet. She’s vaguely aware beyond a drape of haze that beside her, Altaani rises from her seat, the chair falling to the floor. Bang. Her fists slamming the desk. Bang, bang.

“Excuse me, what’s the meaning of this?” Altaani says, leaning over the desk. “You’re here to _help_ the girl, not prosecute her. If you can’t do your job properly, I’ll make a request to the A.D. for a new lawyer. We’re out of here.” Altaani turns towards Natalie. “Natalie? You want to get out?”

Perera doesn’t seem to take any notice of Altaani. Instead she’s looking straight at Natalie, her face carefully blank. Natalie licks her lips, finally finding her voice. “Why?”

Perera sighs. “I’ll be honest with you, Natalie. I think what you did was justified self-defense. I don’t see you as a murderer and I certainly don’t think you premeditated it either.”

“Good,” Altaani says. She picks up the chair and slowly sits down, crossing her arms. “So, just what a defense attorney’s supposed to do. Baby steps are good. You’ll get there some day. I mean, hopefully yesterday, because we need one right now. But hey, not all dreams can come true.”

Perera only flicks Altaani a glance before she looks back at Natalie. “I don’t believe that, but the prosecutor will advocate every angle that will benefit them and go against you, including the ones I’ve mentioned. They’ll say you’re a murderer, have moral deviancies’, convince the jury you’re a devil in disguise. And it won’t be hard either.” She leans forward. “I’ve worked with children like you before, Natalie, and the prosecutor will ask anything to get you flustered or speechless on that questioning stand. They’ll make you guilty for saying innocent things, anything that will get you to backtrack on your story and seem less reliable.”

Leaning back against the chair, Perera never breaks the eye contact. “That’s why we need to practice. I don’t want you to lie; you have nothing to lie about, but we need to practice your story so you know what to say when, so you can say it in your sleep. Forewarned is forearmed. What do you say? Want to go that route?”

Natalie looks at Altaani. Altaani shrugs with a self-deprecating smile in answer to her silent question. “She sounds like she knows what she’s doing.”

“Thank you,” Perera says.

“Hey,” Altaani say, scowling and pointing a finger at her. “It doesn’t mean I support your approach. Just dropping a bomb like that on her wasn’t professional and it wasn’t right.”

Perera nods and looks at Natalie. “I’m sorry about that. But if you still want me to work for you, I guarantee you I’m behind you all the way.”

Natalie looks down and catches sight of the broken glass pieces, glittering around her feet. Her shoes are wet, she notices. “Who is going to pick up the pieces?”

Perera looks confused for a moment, before she seems to catch on. She looks down. “Oh, that. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it later.”

Natalie says, “Yes.”

Perera smiles. “Want to try doing this again?”

Natalie nods, closing her eyes and breathing in. When she opens her eyes again, she looks up at a blank-faced Perera.

“ _Twenty three stab wounds_ , Natalie. Don’t you think that’s a little excessive?”

 

* * *

 

Later, when they’ve tried everything and it still seems like Natalie will receive time at a juvenile facility no matter what they do, Perera sits her down and tells her she can reduce her sentence, make it a clean break for her. By describing her home life to the judge, she could blame her circumstances on a lack of a positive role model and a turbulent childhood.

“You have to understand though,” she says. “This will send your mother and her signi—“

“Do it,” Natalie says.

“Are you sure? Because there is a possibility—“

“Do it.”

Perera peers at her over her glasses, balancing precariously on the tip of her nose. Whatever she sees in Natalie’s face, it makes her give a satisfied nod, before going back to her papers. They continue to discuss the proceedings. Natalie’s trial has so far been closed off from the public, partly because she’s a minor, partly because, at the moment, she’s the most important witness the police has. The charade won’t matter much in the end anyway, because when her testifying gets several men off the street and in jail, it won’t be hard to put two and two together and get Natalie. Someone must’ve seen her as she got arrested that night, and even if they hadn’t, Natalie’s a known face. Her disappearance will get noticed.

They put her in an apartment complex not far from the police station or the courthouse. It’s only a temporary arrangement, but it’s convenient. She seems to be at the police station every other day, testifying, answering questions, testifying again, and pointing at someone through a one-way window. The other days, she’s in court, relaying her story mechanically but steadily. Someone’s assigned to keep watch over her and keep her fed—an old, but stern-looking lady, probably a cop—but mostly she’s by herself. The first day someone else but her and the cop is in the apartment, it’s Perera and she tells her that the cops were able to apprehend her mother and her lover.

“How do you feel about it?” Perera says, and Natalie shrugs.

She comes back, telling her that they were able to prosecute them and they were put in prison. Seven years, at least five years for good behavior.

“How do you feel about it?” Perera tries asking again. Natalie shrugs. Perera sighs.

The next time she stops by, Perera looks grim. She has the final settlement for her sentence, she informs Natalie. One year in a juvenile facility, she says as she keeps apologizing.

“How do you feel about it?” Perera says again. She looks oddly pleading, so Natalie musters the strength to say, “It could be worse.”

It doesn’t seem to make Perera any happier. If anything, she seems more miserable, her face in her hands.

Maybe any other time, Natalie would have enjoyed playing chicken with law enforcement, but she isn’t playing or lying now. She really can’t feel anything, however much she tries. The muscle that exercises feelings is numb, and moreover, there’s a void in her mind, sucking up any half-formed thoughts and ideas. Except for the fear.

She feels the fear.

Tension keeps climbing inside the apartment. Each time Perera visits, she looks more tense and worried than the last time. Even the cop who is watching over her is more shuttered than usual, and Natalie catches her speaking in hushed tones with someone on the phone more than once.

She wonders if they’re here yet, the people who are going to kill her. If they’ve found out where she’s staying. But then again, she should’ve already been dead by now. Maybe they haven’t. Maybe they have. Maybe they’re waiting for an opportunity. Maybe they’re watching right now. She feels a constant scratch on her neck, as if eyes are following her as she moves inside the apartment.

She makes sure all the windows are screwed shut properly, pulls down the shutters and pulls the curtains over, locks the balcony door and keeps the key in her pocket. Still, the feeling of being watched doesn’t disappear. She moves the bookshelf in her bedroom against the window and the desk against the door when she’s going to sleep. But that only ensures she won’t get any sleep. She stares at the desk all night, debating whether or not she should move it, because people can’t get in in the same vein as she can’t get out.

The stairs winding down to the living room don’t have any plating between the stairs. That means that whoever is in the living room can see anyone coming down. That means they can shoot her dead as she walks down the stairs, bullets hitting her back before she ever will see their faces. Whenever she is about to go down, she yells hi, and if the cop lady’s there, she will answer, a little confused. But that solution only brings another problem: it warns the assailants. With that in mind, whenever she walks to the stairs, she does so on silent feet, kneels at the top of the stairs to bring her head between the first and second step and looks around the room, upside down, for any sign of a break in.

She tries to calm herself down, tells herself that cop lady’s in the next room, and surely the police won’t let her be killed. Remembering the phone calls though, she also recalls the rumors of corruption within the police force, cops with ties to the gangs and their bosses, those who are blackmailed and those who more than willingly look the other way in exchange for a bribe. She rummages the kitchen for something she can use to defend herself, goes through all the shelves and cupboards, but of course, there’s no knives or forks. The sharpest thing she can find is the other end of a spoon. There’s glass though. She can work with that. She hits a plate against the edge of the kitchen counter and takes the biggest, sharpest piece she can find among the rubble.

To catch them by surprise, she begins to sleep under the bed. It doesn’t help with the sleeping part.

Through the fear, she just feels tired. The kind of bone-deep exhaustion that won’t leave after a night’s rest. She wakes up, but some days when there’s no use for her anywhere, she just moves to the top of the bed and stays there the whole day, tucked beneath the thick duvet, feeling the sweat pool around her collarbones and stomach, her bones sinking deeper into the mattress. Whenever she leaves the bed for the toilet, she sees her own shape in the sheets. The spikes of fear those days, when she lets herself look at the desk in front of the door, are muted. Those days she doesn’t think she would mind much if they found her.

She doesn’t know how much time passes between Perera’s meetings, has lost count of the days that blend together ‘til nothing , but the next time Perera comes to inform of recent news, she stops dead at the sight of Natalie. Her hands clench at her sides and Natalie takes a step back, eyeing the taunt and angry lines in the woman in front of her, not blinking to catch any fast movements of the arms or legs. The step back seems to shake Perera out of it. She takes a deep breath and unclenches her hands, sinking to the floor in a crouch.

“I’m sorry,” she says, a little stilted. “I think we should postpone our meeting ‘til tomorrow morning, and you should take a shower, all right? You should make sure to use hot water, that’s the best. You’ll find towels in the cabinet.”

The hot shower is nice. The strength in her knees gives at the feeling, so she sinks to the floor and lets the water hit her back, something unclenching inside of her, and she _melts_. She sits like that until the water has gone cold before she takes shampoo to her hair and uses the cold water to rinse it away. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she walks out, she sees brown skin instead of gray and her eyes have gone red from the shampoo.

Perera hasn’t gone yet. Natalie sees her in the living room, upside down through the open gaps between the stair steps. She’s pouring over some documents strewn on the table, a steaming dinner plate of chicken pasta and vegetables at her side. Natalie moves quietly down the stairs and across the floor, but Perera must catch the movement because she looks up. She smiles.

“How was the shower? It seems like it did you some good,” Perera says, tilting her head at her. She points at her own face, says, “You got some glow back.”

“Nice,” Natalie answers and Perera’s smile widens.

“Good to hear,” she says, inclining her head towards the chair in front of her, a silent invitation. Natalie sits down and Perera slides the dinner plate towards her. “Here,” she says, “eat up. It’ll give you some energy.”

There’s no fork, just a spoon, and Natalie doesn’t really feel hungry, but as soon she eats the first spoon under Perera’s watchful, she feels ravenous. Perera looks at her with something she can’t decipher, but when she sees her looking, her face becomes somber.

“So,” she says. “You’re probably wondering why you’re not sent to the facility yet. The police is slowly but surely making way through your testimonies but they still want to keep you close by, in case they have some questions. Don’t worry though, the time you’re here will go under your one year of juvenile detention center. That’s good, right?”

 _No_ , Natalie thinks, biting down hard on a piece of chicken. She wants to get out of this apartment as soon as possible. She wants to get out of this city, this state as soon as possible.

Perera says, “There’s more food in the kitchen, if you’re still hungry. I’ll leave for today and come back tomorrow. Some important issues have come up that we need to discuss, but you should take the night and catch up on some rest. Does that sound all right?”

Natalie nods.

In front of the door, Perera looks at her for a minute, before she nods, mostly to herself, Natalie thinks.

“Good night, Natalie,” Perera says. “Everything’s going to be all right, you’ll see.”

 _Then why does it look like you’re about to cry_ , Natalie doesn’t asks.

Instead, she nods.

 

* * *

 

“Your mother was killed yesterday in jail.”

Natalie sits still. Perera continues, “Her boyfriend too. We don’t know what happened, there must have been some kind of breach of security somewhere. People have been angry, we knew that, so we took the necessary precautions, and yet… We didn’t know to what extent, and I know this is only a hollow explanation, nothing that can ever excuse this.”

“I’m so sorry, Natalie,” Perera says, holding Natalie’s eyes. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

Natalie looks down, says, “Okay.”

Dead silence. Natalie imagines what expression Perera is wearing. Maybe a combination of _what the fuck, she was your fucking mother_ and _you fucking ungrateful child_. Been there, done that. She doesn’t look up to check, not for fear of what she’ll find in her face, but in fear of what Perera will find in hers. Because the moment Perera told her that her mother was dead, something shot through her spine, waking her up from the dead condition of state she’s in, her fingers tingling, ready for action, like there suddenly was a cold knifepoint to her fevered forehead.

It’s a feeling of complete and devastating  _relief_.

Up until this point, she’d only thought of this a temporary arrangement. If not today, then tomorrow, or the day after that, or a year from now, five years, she would be sent back to her mother because she can’t be useful forever. It didn’t matter that her mother was behind bars now, she would find her.

She always had.

Perera coughs, but Natalie keeps her head down. “I don’t want to ask this of you--funeral arrangements will be arranged by others, of course, but since you’re the only living family member we know of–-did your mother have any particular wish to how she wanted to be buried? Cremated?”

Natalie shakes her head.

“Well, where did she come from, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Natalie shakes her head again, says, “Yemen, maybe? It’s the only country she mentioned, but I don’t know for sure.”

Perera hums. Natalie catches some scratching noises, as if she’s writing a few notes on a notepad. “Maybe Christian or Muslim? Did she practice or mention any belief?”

“She didn’t go to any church or mosque or anything, if that’s what you mean. She said ‘Allah’ sometimes, but only to curse.”

Perera hums again. “That doesn’t give me anything, really. Allah is the Arabic word for God.”

Natalie shrugs, but she’s slightly surprised to feel something familiar bubbling beneath her skin. Anger.

“Well, do you have any questions for me?”

“Yeah,” Natalie says, snapping her head up to look at a shocked Perera. “Why do the cops worry more about criminals than actual victims, huh? What about Jim’s funeral?” Her voice cracks at Jim’s names, but she wobbly pushes through. “What about, what about the victims? Huh? Why haven’t I heard anything about them?”

The shock melts into understanding while Natalie watches with a glare.

“I can’t believe it slipped my mind,” Perera says, looking ashamed. She puts a hand in front of her mouth, says, “Natalie, Jim’s funeral already happened a few days ago. I’ll drive you to his grave site if you want to, or I can get someone else to do so if you’d prefer. I am so inconceivably sorry.”

Natalie shakes her head, slumps forward, her head rolling forward as the anger fades, as if the anger was the only thing support her up, leaving her with the void again. Jim’s funeral already happened. _Jim’s funeral already happened._ What about Eva?

She’s too afraid to ask.

“Any other questions?” This time it comes out a little hesitating, a little careful.

“Could you,” Natalie grits out, water in her mouth and heat behind her eyes, “just not talk for a second?”

For hours, they sit – or that’s what it feels like for Natalie – as Natalie breathes, simply breathes, the sound deafening in the silence. Natalie is the one to break it, realizing she has one more question.

“Uh,” Natalie says, “has police officer Altaani contacted you? Or anyone else?”

“No,” Perera says and she sounds sorry and miserable. _Good_ , Natalie thinks. “I’ll tell you as soon as I have heard anything. Is it important?”

“Yeah,” Natalie says. “She’s bringing me something. It’s evidence.”

Perera hisses, as if she’s burned. “That can take some time, but I’ll see to it.”

Natalie nods, not looking up.

“All right,” Perera says, shuffling her stuff into her bag. The meeting is finally coming to a close. “I have to inform you though, that the process of finding you a foster home has been hurried now that you have no living guardian. Hopefully we will get you far away from here. It’s too dangerous to stay, but if you wish…”

Natalie nods.

“What _do_ you wish?” Perera asks after a pointed silence.

Natalie shrugs. “Just get me out. Does it even matter?”

As far as Natalie sees, it doesn’t. She’s not interested in thinking about the future, because after this, what is left for her? Of her? She’s not interested in contemplating on something out of her hands. She figures it’ll come to her in time, but she’s tired, so tired. But time is not merciful and it waits for no one, least of all her, and before she knows it, there’s the future, knocking at her front door.

The future is a social worker waiting in the parking lot outside the apartment complex with a nondescript grey car with black-tinted windows. Perera, who stands beside her – who has, besides a few fumbles, stood as an unshaken figure by her side, reassuring and steady – gives her her card. “Don’t hesitate to call, all right? And don’t worry too much. I’ll be holding the fort at this side of the road, meaning I won’t let anyone who wishes to hurt you pass the borders of Detroit. I promise you.”

Natalie looks at the card, nodding. “Thank you,” she says without looking up from the card. She doesn’t mean for the card.

“No need,” Perera says, shifting from foot to foot. She doesn’t try to hug her or put her hand on her shoulder, and Natalie is grateful for that.

Safely inside the car, Natalie tucks the card in the pocket at the backside of the front seat. She has no delusions that she’s ever going to call the number. Every person for themselves and all that. Even if Perera holds true to her promises, it doesn’t become Natalie to fall onto false security and someone else’s empty words, however much good intent they have. They always fall a step too short.

 

* * *

 

Juvie has the same rules as the streets. It’s just a different court. There’s the same players too. Abandoned kids, arrogant kids. Angry kids.

At the end of her one year, Natalie leaves it all behind; prescribed bottles of medicine rattling in her mostly otherwise empty bag and a newly acquired scar running down her chin. She’s sure to never make the mistake of playing with an exy racquet without checking the strings first, ever again.

 

* * *

 

 

They put her through several foster homes, and Natalie goes through the motions. Nothing sticks to her memory because every day is the same day. Wake up, dress, go to school, back again; wash rinse repeat. She’s living as if she’s looking inside someone else’s life. She hears some of her foster parents’ children whisper about her sometimes, until they suddenly stop whispering altogether.

“She’s so creepy, ma, it’s like she’s a ghost.”

“She never smiles and she never talks. When I try to speak to her, all she does is stare at me. It’s fucking creepy—“

“Lauren! Language!”

“Yeah, yeah, but like, I said, she’s so rude! She never thanks you, mom, for everything you do. She’s so incredibly ungrateful.”

“Yes, well, I can think of other people under this roof who fit that description. Now hush, Lauren.”

She begins to think they think she’s partially hard of hearing, and she doesn’t do anything to disprove them of the notion. She figures she’s moving in a few months anyway, and she’s right. Rotating between more than five foster homes in a year, Natalie ends up with a black sports bag containing all her earthly belongings and even fewer words. She goes through the year with “thank you”s and “yes”s and “no”s and “goodbye”s just fine. Sometimes she talks to herself, just to make sure that she still can at all.

At the end of the first week, her third foster mother comes tentatively up to her room with a thin, tightly wrapped package. In the front is the address, her name and a short message, the letters long and tilted, as if someone wrote it in a hurry.

_Heard you’re out, congrats. Here’s what you asked for. Don’t be a stranger. – Miriam Altaani_

It’s the knives.

 

* * *

 

Maria Chavez turns out to be a plump lady in her late thirties, with big, warm hands and an even bigger heart. She seems to permanently wear a red dish towel around her hips and a smile on her face. Natalie thinks that only a war would be able to wipe away the good humor from her being.

The first time they meet is just outside the apartment, Natalie coming up to the door with her sports bag behind her, which bounces on her every step. Maria’s the one to answer the knock and her whole face brightens when she sees Natalie. Natalie fights the urge to look behind her to check if there’s someone else. All that glow can’t possibly be directed at her.

“Natalie, right?” Maria says and puts out a hand.

Natalie nods and shakes her hand. She has a firm grip, not too slack, not too strong. Maria takes a sudden step closer as if she’s going to embrace her. Natalie takes a reflexive step back, but the heel of her sneaker catches a fold in the carpet and she stumbles. They both freeze at the action, Maria’s smile faltering slightly, before coming back on. Her eyes have gone all sad though, and Natalie looks down at the tip of her sneakers as something like disappointment sits heavy in her stomach.

“Please, come on in, Natalie,” Maria says in a soft and kind voice and pushes the door further open. “Welcome to my humble home.”

It really is modest, but Natalie doesn’t mind. They don’t take many steps as Maria shows her the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedrooms.

“There are only three bedrooms,” Maria says. “Mine is at the end of the hall. Don’t hesitate to knock if there’s anything you need. Or if you just want to talk. The one to the left is Arif’s. He and Nora are around here somewhere, I believe. They’re a bit shy. And the one beside his is yours and Nora’s. I’m afraid you have to share, but she’s a lovely girl. But if it bodes any problem, we can always switch around.”

Natalie shakes her head before Maria’s finished talking, but Maria only smiles and shakes her head right back at her. “No, Natalie,” she says, looking her in the eye. “It’s no inconvenience. If you find yourself uncomfortable, then there really would not be a problem to switch rooms. Believe me. You believe me on that?”

Natalie hesitates for a moment before she nods once. Maria smiles ruefully at her as if she knows she didn’t answer truthfully, but she doesn’t call her on it, and opens the door to the room instead. It’s not a big room, but there’s space. At each side of the room is a bed, and on one of them sits a boy and a girl. They’re giggling, turned towards each other with their legs crossed, but immediately straighten up when they step into the room.

“Nora, Arif,” Maria says. “This is Natalie. She’s the one who’s going to stay with us. Please welcome her as I go and watch on the dinner, all right?”

Maria turns to Natalie, raising her hand as if to touch her, but catches herself midair and runs her hand through her hair instead. She smiles reassuringly at Natalie, says, “I’ll be in the kitchen if there’s anything,” before walking out, leaving the door open. Two pair of eyes turn to Natalie. There’s a few minutes of staring contest before Natalie points at the other bed in a silent question. The boy – Arif – narrows his eyes before nodding. Tossing the bag to one corner, Natalie sits at the edge, facing the others.

“You do sports?” Arif asks, gesturing towards the bag.

“No,” Natalie says, and Arif’s eyes glaze over, losing interest.

Nora leans closer though, asks, “How old are you? I’m ten, but I’ll turn eleven in three weeks, and Arif’s already fourteen.”

“I’m seventeen,” Natalie says, and Nora’s mouth makes a little ‘o’.

“That is so cool,” Nora says, flailing her arms around and almost bouncing on the bed. “You’re already, like, an adult. Hey, can you drive? I bet you can drive and pay for your own stuff.”

Instead of answering, Natalie shakes her head. The idea of her as an adult is laughable. She doesn’t mention that she could drive a car since she was Nora’s age. Nora sits still for a heartbeat, clearly dejected, before seemingly remembering something, snapping her fingers. Beside her, Arif groans. “But you can play exy! She’s old enough to play exy, Arif! Have you ever played exy?”

Natalie shakes her head again, but this time it doesn’t refute Nora. “I’ll teach you! Well, first Hernandez has to teach me, but then I can teach you. Mom doesn’t let us play in the team before we’ve turned eleven, but my birthday’s in two weeks and then I can teach you.”

Arif murmurs something under his breath, and Nora punches his shoulder. It’s not a hard punch, but Natalie’s eyes widen in surprise and momentary panic. Is she supposed to stop it? Should she call for Maria?

“Uh-huh,” Nora says. “Say that again, jerk.”

“Girls can’t play exy, dumbass,” Arif says, rising to his feet and moving towards the door. Nora throws her pillow after him, but it hits the door as it closes behind him with a bang.

“Ugh, _pendejo_ ,” Nora says, turning to Natalie with a knowing look. “Boys. They think they know everything.”

Nora smiles at Natalie, before her eyes widen in sudden realization. “Uh, maybe don’t tell mom that I said that?”

“Said what?” Natalie asks, and Nora grins, her teeth shockingly white against her dark skin, before proceeding to talk about exy, what position she wants ( _striker_ ), what uniform ( _well, blue, because everyone has to wear blue in the team_ ), what number ( _seven’s the lucky number, duh_ ), how many goals she’s going to make ( _world records, Natalie_ ). Before they know it, Maria is popping her head in, telling them dinner is ready. She smiles at their positions--Natalie sitting propped up on the bed against the wall, Nora lying beside Natalie--before she ushers them to the kitchen where Arif’s already seated. As Natalie watches Arif pretending not to see Nora stealing some of the meatballs on his plate, and listens to the harmless banter filling the room, she’s starting to think that maybe she’s welcome here. As long as it lasts.

 

* * *

 

Natalie develops a routine here too. She wakes up, goes to school, comes back. But now she comes back to Maria’s unrelenting warm greetings and the sounds from Arif’s playstation and the warm side of Nora as she sits down beside her on the sofa, Nora bemoaning homework and exy.

The first time Nora had leaned on her, she’d immediately stiffened up, forcing herself to not turn her head, watching the TV. It had been turned on a channel showing a Disney movie, but the colorful pictures passed her eyes without registration. She was too focused on not letting the tension in her arms alert Nora, but it did. Nora had sat up, and looked at her in silence, before she smiled.

“Smile,” she had said, putting her index fingers at the edges of her own mouth and pushing. “I don’t see you smile and that’s sad. There’s a million things to smile for.”

Natalie had considered just ignoring her and walk out, but she didn’t find any reason against listening to her. So she did. Smile.

Noa had laughed at her efforts and said, “It's a start! If you smile more, even when you don’t feel like smiling, smiling will come easier. Smiling makes people and yourself more happy. Believe me.” And she had sat back down on the sofa again, this time leaning against the armrest and tucking her toes under Natalie’s thigh. After a few minutes, the tension slowly seeped out of Natalie.

Nora hits you like a force of nature in every way, unguarded, shameless and visible because everything she does, she does unrelenting and _loud_. She walks with a bounce when she’s happy, cries openly when she’s sad, tells you off when she’s angry. It was disconcerting to see, the way every emotion showed on Nora’s face, sometimes switching between different emotions so fast, it felt like whiplash. At first, Natalie looks away, trying to build some semblance of privacy for Nora, but when she witnesses how the others interact with her, she starts to look her in the eyes. Not for long though. She has to avert her eyes after a few seconds, letting them glide off to the side. Even so, Natalie doesn’t regret her efforts because she notices the way Nora perks up a little when she does, her gestures becoming a little more animated and her smile a little wider.

Natalie notices something else while watching Nora. It’s difficult to catch her alone. She’s always with her friends in the school yard, spinning stories and telling jokes; nudging Arif to catch his attention and point at something that caught hers on the way to school; sitting by the dinner table and dangling her legs, telling Maria about her teachers and friends. She walks into a room of people and it seems a little bit more vibrant, a little bit _brighter_.

She never stops moving either, too much energy in a too small package. It ends with her coming back home with small cuts, scraped knees and burned hands, a twisted ankle and a bump to the head. The saying about burned children not wanting to play with fire? Nora doesn’t know what it means.

“Querida, por favor,” Maria says one day, and although her tone is laced with exasperation, it is also full of worry, and she rushes across the room. “What happened? Where are you hurt?”

Natalie’s sitting by the table in the living room, the only reason she’s witnessing the scene. Usually she would be holed up in the room by this time, or wandering outside, but she has a big history test tomorrow and she wants a good enough grade to not disappoint Maria. There’s no desk in the room she sleeps in, so she spreads her books, notes and sheets all over the small table in the living room after asking for permission, bowing over them and repeating dates in her head. _1776, 1789, 1800…_

She looks up at Maria’s words and movement and sees Arif and Nora standing in the doorway. She doesn’t fully process the scene at once, only noticing that Nora’s crying.

“Mama,” Nora says, biting down on a sob. “I fell.”

It’s not the same situation at all,  _it’s not_. It’s in the middle of a Sunday, sunshine washing in through the windows and bathing everything in light. And it’s hot, sizzling, the last days bringing with them a heatwave, and Natalie’s suddenly aware of how the sweat makes her tee cling uncomfortably to her skin, how her hair’s sticking to her neck.

She can’t breathe.

“From the bike,” Arif says from far away, but Natalie has to hold her head very still, holding it between her hands and covering her ears, because the room’s spinning, and her head feels very heavy and empty at the same time. She pushes the chair away from under her and falls to the floor because she can’t find her balance and if you’re already down, you can’t fall.  There’s, there’s no air— The windows are open. Was the air in the room sucked out by the sun? Something like a waterfall thunders in her ears and she feels her heartbeats at the tip of her  _fingertips_. Beyond the thundering rush in her ears, she swears she can hear police sirens.

She’s going to die.

“Put your head between your knees,” Arif says, suddenly closer.

She does, putting her back to the wall, gulping—gulping air? Vacuum? What does vacuum feel like in your throat? Like acid? Like—

“Listen,” Arif says, “listen to my breathing, okay? Okay?”

She whimpers, trying to nod.

“Breathe in through your nose,” Arif says. “Hold it. And slowly let it out your mouth. In through the nose. Hold it. And out through the mouth.”

He repeats it like a mantra and Natalie does her best to follow until she feels the warmth at her back again, feels hands holding around her ankles and pushing her feet to the floor, grounding her. It has to be hours before she’s able to lift her head. The first thing she sees is Arif in front of her, eyes wide and lips pressed into a thin line. She’s surprised to see that he looks afraid. He had sounded so calm.

“Oh, Natalie,” Maria says, sitting beside Arif and looking at her with big, worried eyes. “Are you okay?”

Natalie nods slowly, something like shame and embarrassment coiling in her stomach.

“Nora?” Natalie says, her voice thick.

Maria hesitates before saying, “She became upset. I took her to her room.”

“Sorry,” Natalie says.

Maria frowns and shakes her head slowly. She doesn’t look angry at Natalie, but Natalie looks away either way, not sure she wants to decode whatever’s in Maria’s expression.

“I’m letting go now,” Arif says hushed. Natalie nods and the pressure on her feet lets up. Arif rises. “I’ll go check on Nora.”

Maria nods without looking away from Natalie. Natalie feels Maria’s eyes on her and it takes all her will not flinch away, get out of the line of sight of a gun.

“Was it the blood?” Maria says.

Natalie blinks in her surprise and nods.

“Jesus and Mary,” Maria says. “Want to help me make dinner?” she continues after a moment. “I’d like something light but fulfilling.”

Natalie nods.

Dinner’s awkward but it gets better as Natalie asks Nora what happened and Nora launches into an incredible – as in totally made up – story about her bike, a cat and a pumpkin seller. But the story manages to shift the atmosphere to an amicable one and soon it’s like nothing had happened. If only Natalie could stop looking at Nora’s bandaged hands and Arif would stop glancing at Natalie.

It makes her skin crawl.

Arif is a defense player. As far as Natalie has seen, that’s applicable both on the court and off it. Compared to his sister, he’s quiet, only offering his input if he himself considers it worthwhile, holding his cards close to his chest, not giving anything away until he has a sure win. Whereas Nora is overt, Arif is subtle, but most of all, he’s watchful and he notices the small details. She doesn’t know what he thinks he now knows about her, but she doesn’t like it.

The next day she and Arif wait for Nora outside the apartment. Maria is doing Nora’s hair, letting them know she’s soon finished with the braids and telling them to wait ahead.

It’s a nice day, not as hot as the last days have been. Natalie’s looking at the trees, trying to discern any birds, and that’s why she’s utterly defenseless when Arif speaks up.

“Why do you keep a knife strapped to your ankle?”

Her blood freezes. She turns slowly towards him, trying to act nonchalant, but the microsecond of a freeze-up must’ve tipped him off, because when she looks at him, he looks like he knows he’s right and he doesn’t like it one bit.

“Wha—“

“So you _do_ have a knife,” he says, dropping his gaze to the aforementioned place. “It’s a shift blade, right? I felt something hard when I grabbed your ankle and I thought, what could one possibly have to hide there?” He shrugs. “A gun or a knife. The most possible explanation was a knife because of its shape. If I thought for a second it really was a gun – believe me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So, a knife. What I don’t get, is why you have one.”

“It’s,” Natalie says and stops. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Arif raises his brows. “I haven’t. I mean, I should--a strange girl with knives on her, wandering around in my, the house--I really, really should. But I haven’t. Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

“I’m,” Natalie says, “holding them for a friend.”

“Interesting friend,” Arif says. “What, they made of gold or something? Why not lock them up somewhere?” They look at each other, sizing each other up. Arif sighs, holding his hands up as if he’s conceding a point. “Look, I’m going to tell Maria.”

Narrowing her eyes, Natalie carefully unclenches her hands and says, “Are you, are you threatening me?”

“Woah, no!” Arif hurries to say, taking a step back. “No, no, I’m going to tell her, not to screw with you, but mostly because we have an absolute honesty thing going on, but… if you tell her it’s for your own safety, it makes you feel safe, or whatever reason you have, she’ll probably listen. I don’t know if she’ll let you wear them, but you should. Tell her, that is.”

Natalie breathes before she nods her affirmation.

“Okay,” Arif says. “Okay. And I probably shouldn’t do this, but.” He steps closer, his arms shaking slightly but his voice firm when he says, “If you use that knife on Maria or Nora, wallahi, I’ll cut you down myself. Understood?”

Natalie feels herself baring her teeth. “That’s your threat?”

Arif nods, locking his jaw, the shaking more prominent now. Natalie wonders what it is about her that makes this boy nearly piss his pants. If only she had that ability when she was on the streets, she thinks a little wistfully.

Natalie looks away, says, “That was weak, but understood. I’m not going to do anything with this knife near Maria or Nora. Satisfied?”

Arif steps immediately back, looking away and nodding. He coughs and pulls on his shirt as if to clear the wrinkles. “Good talk.”

There’s another thing about Arif. While Maria and Nora are happy to speak Spanish between each other, they will mostly speak in English if Arif is nearby. It’s evident that Arif knows some Spanish, or at least understands, because he has interjected in conversations spoken in Spanish before – so rapid Natalie herself can’t catch anything – but, well, Spanish is obviously not Arif’s mother tongue or even his second language. Arabic is.

Natalie doesn’t really catch anything in the beginning. Oh, she does have an inkling. It’s impossible not to notice Arif’s “wallahi” and “allahu akhbar”, but it doesn’t really register what that means before James comes along.

James Walker comes into her life one Saturday evening with presents and chocolates and tickets to an exy game, the day before Nora’s birthday. Standing beside Maria in the doorway, he appears tall and in front of Natalie, he’s taller. He’s lanky though, and the cane he’s leaning on makes Natalie confident enough to step forward and shake his hand. It’s calloused and the white scars around his fingers are easily visible against his black skin.

“James,” he says and shakes her hand in a firm grip, not too strong, not too slack. “Professor in Political Science, exy enthusiast and practically a personal chauffeur for Nora and Arif at this point. Nice to meet you.”

Natalie nods, says, “I’m Natalie. I am no one special.”

James laughs a quiet and deep rumble. “I like you a lot already, Natalie,” he says and lets go of her hand to reach for something in his jacket. Natalie tenses up, ready to jump aside, when he procures a piece of paper and hands it to her with a crooked smile. It’s a ticket.

“You up for an exy game tonight? It’s my early birthday present for Nora. Maria here,” he says, nodding towards Maria with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes, “says she’s too old – I’m sorry – _too tired_ to go, so if you have a friend or someone you would like to bring, I have an extra ticket. It begins at seven o’clock, but I’ll drive everyone to the stadium early, because, you know,” and here he glances pointedly down at his right leg, wagging the cane by his side, “and it’s just easier to get to our seats if we’re not run down by thousands of people.”

“I’m not old,” Maria says, fond exasperation in her voice. She boxes his ear as if to push the idea out of his head. “You’re older than me, you oaf.”

“Oh,” James says and widens his eyes. He waves his free hand in front of his face. “It’s easy to forget with me seeing this youthful face in the mirror every day. Hey, hey, Natalie, you settle this; who looks younger?” He leans at Maria’s side, tilting his head to bring their faces beside each other, so his cheek touches her temple, and Natalie thinks  _oh_.

Her mouth is suddenly dry. She swallows and looks down at the ticket. “I’m not sure I should go. I don’t know anything about exy and I don’t know anyone who likes it, so—“

A shriek interrupts whatever she was going to say, closely followed by “James!” and the quick pattering of feet. Stopping a few feet before them, Nora slides the last distance on her socks to stand in front of James and carefully wraps her arms around him. “You’re home, you’re home!”

“I missed you too, kiddo. It’s good to be back,” James says and smiles down at her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Now, let go so I can breathe and also see how tall you’ve become.”

Nora giggles. “You saw me three weeks ago,” she says, but she does what he says, even makes a little pirouette.

“No, five weeks ago,” James says and puts his hand on the left side of his chest. “I know because I’ve counted the days ‘til I see my sunshine again, my heart crying out—“

“Okay, okay,” Nora says, boxing his side. “I get it, I get it.” She puts a hand at the top of her head with a frown. “I don’t think I’ve grown that much though.”

“Oh no,” James says. He steps forward and puts his hands at the sides of her face, rolling her head around as if he is inspecting her. “No,” he says thoughtful. “No, I can definitely see a few extra centimeters from last time.”

Nora laughs and swats at his arms. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

“No, no, I definitely see a change,” James says. “Eleven is a big number; some kids at your age just shoot up.”

“I’m not even eleven yet. It’s tomorrow.”

“Hey,” Arif says, coming around the corner. “What’s all the fuss about?”

“Arif,” James says, holding his hand out, which Arif immediately clasps. Using that as leverage, James reels Arif into a bear hug. “Assalam aleikum, how are you, my friend?”

Except he doesn’t say it in English.

“’Salam,” Arif says back, carefully extracting himself from James’ arms. “I’m good, alhamdulillah. How are you?”

Witnessing the exchange between Arif and James creates a strange vertigo within Natalie. It’s like walking up the stairs in the dark, stepping up to the last footstep only to find that it’s not there, it’s just empty air, and as you struggle to find your balance, grabbing for purchase, the railing, _anything_ before you fall down the steps and break your neck --  you realize you’ve miscalculated.

Natalie’s world shifts sideways and falls into its place with a soft click.

“Natalie?”

Natalie blinks. “Yes?”

Maria looks at her with concerned eyes. Even James is casting her a glance while continuing to talk to Nora and Arif, shifting his stance so he’s blocking Nora and Arif’s view of her.

“Is everything all right?” Maria says, her voice low.

Natalie raises the corners of her mouth, trying to make a reassuring smile. “I’m all right, just suddenly a little dizzy. I think I should just go to sleep it off. You should go with them instead.”

Maria looks unimpressed. “Are you sure? Natalie, there’s no--”

“Natalie!” Nora says, going around James and stopping in front of Natalie. “No, no, you have to come, please come with us! It’ll be so fun, I promise.”

Maria looks conflicted between Nora and Natalie, obviously thinking that Nora shouldn’t pressure Natalie, but also wanting Natalie to go. Natalie looks at Maria, at Nora, at James and Arif, at how they’re all standing around each other, facing her, all with various degrees of worry and plead in their faces. They’re a unit, Natalie thinks, looking at how they’re comfortably in each other space, casually touching each other; a clasp on the shoulder, an arm linked around an other’s. A family. And they’re all radiating warmth and welcoming smiles, trying to invite her into their space. It would be so easy--too easy--to just take a step forward and bask in their warmth. All too easy.

It’s been some time since Natalie has felt cold, she suddenly realizes. She shivers, her arms filling with goosebumps at the thought, at the cold feeling that creeps back and sets inside the hollow of her bones again. The cold blade of a knife, the cold water she used to wipe her hands and face, the cold sink she hung to and used as an anchor. She swore she would never forget that, ever. But she did. She did.

She forgot.

She looks at the family across her, making a unit. On the other side of them, is Natalie, and she makes her whole own unit because there’s no one standing beside her. And she remembers why, and she remembers she’s the reason why.

Natalie takes a step back.

“I’m sorry, Nora,” Natalie says as Nora’s face falls. She doesn’t look at the others. “I really do feel a little bad, so--”

“Should I get some medicine?” Maria immediately asks, making a motion towards the bathroom. “Do you feel overheated? Maybe it’s the flu, it’s always the season for that, you know.”

Natalie shakes her head, stopping Maria’s fussing. “No, just a little dizzy. I’m pretty sure I can just sleep it off, so you go with them to the match.”

Nora opens her mouth, looking like she’s about to protest, when Maria stops her with a little nudge. “If you’re sure,” Maria says.

“I’m sure,” Natalie says. “Please go.”

They go.

 

* * *

 

Natalie does go to bed early that evening, but she wakes up to the same time she would on a Sunday morning. She looks over at Nora, laying sprawled over her duvet. She’s still wearing the same clothes she did when they went out. It must’ve been a late night. When Natalie goes out of their bedroom--closing the door carefully behind her--she sees the sofabed in the living room pulled out, duvet and pillow, but no person in it. She hears voices in the kitchen and moves towards it, but pulls to a short stop when she hears how angry Maria sounds.

“--don’t want to hear it, James! That’s enough. My money, my problems. I’ll figure it out.”

James voice sounds just as hushed and just as angry when he says, “You don’t think I think of them as--Maria, they’re important to me too. If you won’t accept it, think of it as a loan.”

“James, you’re not exactly swimming in money. I know that.”

“I don’t understand why this is so difficult. You even took in a third child. That’s more expenses that you can barely make, scraping by. All I want to do is help with that. Why won’t you let me help you?”

“Natalie was a special case and it was supposed to be a temporary arrangement.”

“‘Supposed to be’... La ilaha ila-llah. Maria!”

Natalie has heard enough. James raising his voice makes her throat close up in a way it hasn’t in awhile, and in the next fraction of a second, she runs to the kitchen door. James, sitting by the kitchen table, and Maria, in front of the stove, startle and turn towards her with wide eyes as Natalie has to grab the door frame to stop her acceleration. They all stare at each other for a tense moment.

“I thought,” Natalie says, “someone hurt themselves when I heard the yelling.”

“No,” Maria says, a little stilted, a little hesitant. “Natalie… no, we’re fine.”

Natalie gives a short nod, and that breaks the tension. Maria smiles, nodding to the kitchen table. “Sorry for scaring you. Why don’t you take a seat? The eggs are soon finished, and then we’ll wake up Nora and Arif for the birthday breakfast.”

Natalie nods, and sits down, taking the seat between James and Maria. James smiles at her, a little abashed. “Hey, kiddo,” he says, “how’s your head doing? Not so dizzy anymore?”

“It’s all right,” Natalie says. “Kiddo?”

James smiles. “You’re Maria’s. That makes you a ‘kiddo’ in my book.”

“I’m not a kid though,” Natalie says, least of all Maria’s, but she hears Maria in the background making more noise than usual as she goes through the pantry, as if she’s trying to cover up something like a laugh. James raises his eyebrows and nods like he’s very satisfied with himself.

“Careful, James, you sound just like Stephanie,” Maria says, coming over to slide a glass of orange juice to both of them.

“No way,” James says, mock affronted. “I said it first! She copied _me_.”

“Mhm,” Maria says, in a way that clearly indicates she’s not listening anymore. She begins to find plates and Natalie rises from her seat to help her with the plating. Maria throws her a grateful smile and loads her arms with a stack of plates.

“Speaking of, did you know that Stephanie’s coming to town? Next week even.”

Maria laughs. “Steph? Stephanie Walker?  _That_ Stephanie?”

“The one and only,” James says, giving out a huff.

“She finished saving the world?” Maria points Natalie towards the refrigerator where the food is. The cake is chocolate and cream, and Natalie thinks that Nora’s going to love it.

“As if. She’s coming back for work. Apparently there’s been an influx of drug related crimes and gang violence here, and she thinks there’s some links back to Detroit.”

Natalie has already put the cake on the table and that is the only reason it doesn’t end up on the floor. Her blood freezes at the name “Detroit”. She leans back against the edge of the table and blinks rapidly to get rid of the sudden tunnel vision.

_Detroit._

Maria turns around, her mouth open and about to say something, but she catches sight of Natalie, standing by the finished table. She smiles. “Natalie, thank you. Would you be a darling and wake Nora and Arif? It’s about time we get this party started.”

James puts up his hands and does a little cheer--sounding a little sarcastic in Natalie’s opinion--while Natalie goes to do just that. She catches some last words before she’s out of hearing range.

“Why did you sound like that when you mentioned Steph and ‘saving the world’? It’s not like you--”

She goes to Nora’s room first, closing the door silently, and then she lets herself fall to the floor. Her arm unconsciously goes to her shin before she remembers that Maria took her to the side a few days ago and took the knives.

Jesus fucking Christ, she let her take _her knives._

On the edge of a panic attack, she pinches her nose and forces herself to breath through her mouth. She sits like that for a few minutes, calming herself down and thinking of what she should do.

Making her decision, she shakes herself off the shock and goes to wake Nora. It’s its own kind of nightmare. Natalie ends up almost carrying her to the bathroom and she dumps her unceremoniously against the sink. Arif’s already awake and rubbing the sleep from his eyes when she knocks and opens the door before an answer. She says sorry, and is about to get out when he stops her.

“Hey,” he says, killing a yawn. “Hey, I wanted to talk to you anyway, about yesterday.”

She steps in--stepping over some dirty laundry--and closes the door behind her.

“James and Maria like each other, but God knows when they’ll admit it,” Arif says without preamble. “But James isn’t dangerous. He isn’t anything but nice to Maria and Nora and me. He’s not a beater or abusive or anything.”

Natalie nods, but her thoughts are going hundred miles per hour. When, how... “Why are you telling me this?”

Arif shakes his head even before she’s finished. “You’re not obvious, don’t worry. I just catch those thoughts. My biological father used to beat my biological mother.”

Natalie already figured that out. Arif knows things average children doesn’t know. Shouldn’t know. Like how to recognize the shapes of knives through clothes and what to do during panic attacks. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Arif says. “Oh. Okay. Uhm, I also wanted to ask you about your knives. She seemed really conflicted when I brought it up. Did Maria talk to you about them yet?”

“She took them,” Natalie says and shrugs like it’s no big deal. Which it isn’t. She knows Maria hid them under the mattress in her room. She checked yesterday when they were gone and they were still there.

Arif looks awkward, shifting from foot to foot in his tee and sweats, so Natalie takes the opportunity to leave, saying, “Get ready before we eat all the cake.”

They all meet up in the kitchen and it’s a party, and Natalie even lets herself smile at Nora’s laughter. It’s all good. At this moment, it’s all good.

 

* * *

 

“Wait,” Natalie says and stops. “I think I forgot my dictionary.”

Nora and Arif turns to her with frowns, one with worry and the other with annoyance.

“We’re running late already,” Arif says, beginning to move again. “I have a test in my first class.”

Hanging back, Nora looks between Arif and Natalie, but Natalie begins to wave her away before she can turn to berate Arif. “Go ahead, my teacher’s not that strict. I’ll run, so you do too.”

Nora hesitate for a split second before she nods and runs after Arif who’s already a few dozen meters along the way. Natalie looks at them for a moment. That was the first hurdle and she made it. She probably won’t be seeing them again. Without looking back, she runs.

In front of the apartment, Natalie stops up a little to catch her breath. There’s no real hurry now. Maria and James went out at the same time as them, and won’t be back for at least a few hours. It’s enough time to get the knives, pack her things and be out of the state before they become suspicious.

She’s about to bend down to pick the lock, when the door suddenly opens and shows Maria at the other side.

“Natalie?” Maria says. “What are you doing here?”

“I forgot my dictionary,” Natalie says. “And I have a test in French today, so…”

“Oh, of course,” Maria says and goes to the side to let her in. To Natalie’s luck, Maria doesn’t follow, just says, “Hurry up, James is waiting in the parking lot. Should we drive you?”

“No,” Natalie says as she turns the corner to the hallway of bedrooms. She opens the door to Nora’s room, but continues on, with silent feet, to Maria’s at the end of the hall. She doesn’t hesitate; she upturns the madrass, grabs the knives and puts them in her school bag. Before she goes out, she opens the drawers and grabs some loose change and a couple of bank, just enough for her to take the buss and get a meal. She hopes it doesn’t give Maria too much trouble.

“Are you sure?” Maria say when she shows up again. “It’s not too much out of the way, I’m sure James wouldn’t mind.”

“Completely sure,” Natalie says and smiles. “The class starts a little late today anyway.”

“Okay,” Maria says, still a little hesitant, but she closes and locks the door. “I’ll see you after school then.”

“Yeah,” Natalie says. “Goodbye.”

And that’s that.

 

* * *

 

Except it isn’t because a few hours later, a civil car drives up to the bus station where Natalie’s waiting for a bus going south. She realizes it’s the cops too late, and one puts his hand on her shoulder before she can run away.

After the first few tries at getting her to open up, they don’t talk to her on the way to the police station, and when they get her there, they sit her down on a seat and walk away for a call. To Maria, Natalie thinks. More probably some social worker. Not one of the passing cops look at her.

Natalie could cry at the biting familiarity of it all.

She doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep in her seat before something jolts her. She wakes up and something jolts her chair again before she can even open her eyes.

“Yo, kiddo,” a warm and amused voice says, “you done sleeping?”

Natalie looks up and blinks a few times at the sight. A woman is crouched in front of her. For a second she thinks it’s Altaani, but she can’t figure out why James’ voice would come out of her. But it’s not Altaani, of course. This woman is a hijabi too, but she’s thicker and wears big, corny glasses.

“You made some people real worried,” she says when it’s apparent Natalie won’t say anything. “Lucky for me I was already here.”

“Yeah, not as a convict or anything,” she continues and winks. “I have _ties_ and am a very influential person.”

“Wow,” she sighs. “You really do not smile, do you? Give me a break, I have jet lag, jokes are kinda above me.”

Natalie blinks. “You haven’t told a joke.”

“So you noticed.”

“Are you,” Natalie says, “Stephanie? James’ sister?”

Stephanie Walker smiles up at Natalie and says, “The one and only. Stephanie I am, but James is my cousin.”

Natalie nods and looks down again. “How are…?”

Stephanie sits down on the floor, bending down to catch Natalie’s gaze. “How are Maria and the others? They’re on their way, by the way, and they’re fine, just scared. For you, I mean.”

Natalie closes her eyes and says nothing, doesn’t say _they shouldn’t be_.

“They were wondering if they did something wrong. They’re afraid they pushed you away.”

Natalie shakes her head, but doesn’t open her eyes.

“Is it okay if I asked why you ran away? Where were you going?”

Natalie doesn’t stop shaking her head and it has nothing to do with Stephanie’s questions and everything to do with the overwhelming feelings in her head. There’s a lump in her throat and heat behind her eyes and a constant push on her forehead and too much air in her nose.

“You know what?” Stephanie says and shakes the chair a little by the leg. “You know what, Natalie? You can cry if you want to.”

And so, in front of a complete stranger, Natalie bursts.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh. Yeah. Danielle Wilds. She’s the new captain of the Hunters Pointe Bears.”
> 
> When nothing else is forthcoming, Natalie says, “ _So?_ ”
> 
> Rolling her eyes, Kaylee says, “So? Do you know how many exy teams there are with female captains? None. She’s the first one. All serious exy teams doesn’t play around, all right? _So_ , the thing is, Nat, the team cannot be very strong, can it, if they’re _that_ desperate?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments! I appreciate every single one of them so, so much. Everything's been so wild in my life, I just never got around to answering them, and when I had time, it seemed... very late, so. Anyway, I promise to try to answer every single one of your comments from now on! I love you all, thanks for being so patient with me <3

“No sugar,” Stephanie says. “Thanks.”

Maria freezes, leaving her arm balancing a tea spoon over Stephanie’s cup of tea. Natalie doesn’t catch her look, but Maria slowly puts the spoon away without a word.

James isn’t that silent.

“What are you laughing at?” Stephanie says, nudging James with a sharp elbow. “Hey. Hey!”

“I’m sorry,” James says between hiccups of laughter. “Just, when did you stop pouring a ton of sugar on everything you consume?”

“Please,” Stephanie says, somehow able to give the impression of a lifetime of exasperation into that word. “People change.”

“Not this drastically.”

They all laugh, too joyous to be anything but an old private joke between the three of them, but then the laughter tempers off and all that’s left is an oppressive silent.

Natalie still doesn’t look up.

She keeps her gaze fixed at a point on the coffee table. She doesn’t dare to turn to lift her head. She doesn’t dare to look up and see Maria’s expression. Once, at the police station when she and James arrived, was one too many. She didn’t intend to put that worry and pain on her. But that’s unfair to say. She knew she would. She just planned not to be here when Maria realized what happened.

“So,” Stephanie says, breaking the silence, “Natalie told me what happened.”

At that, Natalie struggles not to flinch. She doesn’t know what she expected, and it’s not like Maria doesn’t know the deal, she must’ve been informed before taking her in, but she didn’t know the sordid mess, the bloody details, and Natalie should’ve known better not to tell, not to break, and here’s what she gets, here’s where the glass house breaks--

“And the whole thing is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Stephanie continues with a little huff. “It was a dare, can you believe it? What the-- what in the world is up with teens these days? When  _ we _ snuck out and skipped school for a concert, or even a game, we at least knew how to bury the evidence.”

The words doesn’t make sense at first. Natalie can hear Stephanie talking, but she can’t process the words correctly and when the sentences finally makes sense, Natalie can’t believe what she’s hearing.

She looks up.

“There’s an exy game in the next town over, and some of Natalie’s  _ friends _ ,” Stephanie tells Maria, not looking at Natalie at all, despite how hard she tries to make eye contact, to find out why,  _ why would she _ , “thought it would be nice to break into one of their aunts’ old penthouse or whatever, spend the night and be early to catch the players and get their autographs.”

Blinking, Maria and James turn towards her as if waiting for her affirmation, but Natalie’s only staring at Stephanie, who finally looks at her with a raised eyebrow and a crooked smile, as if laughing at her own private joke, a private joke she’s now sharing with Natalie.

Stephanie continues, with laughter lacing her voice, “Man, Maria, did you remember the time we snuck out to catch that rock festival? That was a friday, and we planned the whole thing for at least two weeks beforehand, and these kids thought they were going to make it on a  _ monday _ . I seriously have no idea why people keep praising these kids as the smartest generation, they clearly don’t bother to think before they do anything.”

“Steph,” Maria admonishes, but for what, Natalie’s not sure. Stephanie smiles and shrugs, and Maria turns to Natalie with a skeptical look. “Is this true, Natalie?”

Glancing at Stephanie once more and seeing her with a serious expression, all laughter suddenly gone, Natalie decides not to question Lady Luck and nods. “I’m sorry.”

Maria looks at her eyes for a few second, before breaking out in a relieved sigh. “Goodness. I guess everyone should have a rebellious teenage phase, but for all that is precious in the world, next time, just ask. Okay, Natalie?”

Natalie nods resolutely, and repeats, “I’m sorry.”

Maria smiles gently and says, “All is forgiven, Natalie.”

“Wait,” James says, raising his arm, and Natalie stiffens. They turn towards him. “What I don’t get is, all this for an exy game? I thought you didn’t like exy.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Stephanie says. “She plays as a goalie.”

A tinny scream sounds through the walls, but it’s cut short, as if someone put their hands over the screamers mouth. A screamer that sounds suspiciously like an 11 year old girl. They all start and look at the door to the kitchen, realizing it’s slightly open.

“Nora! Arif!” Maria calls out immediately and goes for the door. James looks at her before looking over at Natalie and shrugs. “Well, there goes your secret.”

Stephanie says, “Oh, oops, I’m sorry,” but Natalie thinks she doesn’t look particularly apologetic.

 

* * *

 

Before she goes out, there’s a moment where Stephanie and Natalie is alone in front of the doorway. Stephanie looks at her, and Natalie wonders if she should thank her even though she didn’t ask her to do it, or if she should ask her why she did what she did, why she lied to her friends, why she covered for Natalie, why she did it at all when she  _ knew _ ; she knows what Natalie have done. Natalie wonders if she expects something of her. If it’s some sort of blackmail, or a loan, or  _ something _ .

“Hey,” Stephanie says, and Natalie snaps to attention. Stephanie smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes exactly. She makes a fist and mimes knocking at her own head. “I can hear your gears going up there. Don’t worry, I’m not expecting anything of you. You don’t owe me anything at all, and you don’t have to contact me or anything, but.” She reaches into her pocket and comes up with a slip of paper with a string of handwritten numbers. “My cell,” she explains. “For when you’re in trouble. Or if you want to talk to someone else. I’m planning to be in town for some time. I’ll pick up.”

Natalie takes the paper, and then there’s an awkward moment where they look at each other, and Natalie gets the impression that they’re probably expected to hug, or shake each other’s hands or give some kind of touch, an acknowledgment of each other’s existence and what happened today. But Stephanie only smiles at her and says, “Take care of yourself, kiddo.”

Between a blink and the next, she’s gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Later, with a slight touch to her arm, Maria asks where the knives are. Natalie shows her. Maria asks her what they mean. Natalie tells her as it is; redemption. 

Natalie could’ve said so much more. About her promise to Eva. About how Eva had taken care of her even when she couldn’t take of herself, and how Natalie had ultimately thrown all of that away. About how none of the knives she carried are the same knife she had used to stab a man between his ribs and all over his stomach, but that one of the knives had the same weight in her hand. Her lips tremble, caught between determination and indecision, but in the end, Maria looks away first. 

Maria doesn’t take the knives away, and she doesn’t ask about them anymore either.

 

* * *

 

Nora is ecstatic to hear Natalie plays exy, and Maria is excited to hear that Natalie is interested in an activity she could enroll her in. However, it’s late in the game season and Hernandez looks through her like she’s not even there when she goes into the gym and explains she wants to try out as a goalie. The other players look annoyed that their practice is interrupted and has to play along with what they call a wannabe, and not only a wannabe, but an old one, one who hasn’t played with them in the same team for years, like they have done. They all look down at her, both mentally and physically, because they’re generally bulkier and taller than her. They’re all boys too, except for two girls sitting on the bench. 

She changes in the girls’ restroom to a sweaty, old spare uniform and a helmet that’s clearly too large for her. Hernandez doesn’t seem to mind either way, and sends her out to the court. Before she’s even fully inside the goal, a ball swishes past her, so close to hitting her shoulder that she feels the phantom pain. The ball hits the back of the goal and bounces back. She turns around to find the guys trying to hide their not-so-subtle laughter and sneers. One of them doesn’t even bother to hide it, laughs outright in front of her face. She tries to imagine how she looks like for them. She’s short, and she probably looks even shorter and tinier inside the goal, a goal designed to be protected by larger people than her,  _ guys _ larger than her. The huge helmet is nearly falling over her eyes and the racquet in her hands, a racquet that’s taller than herself, is threatening to shake her off balance. She can imagine. She looks out of place.

A surge of adrenaline shoots through her, and her head clears, like there was some kind of fog in front of her eyes before. She needs to bite down on her lip to keep herself from baring her teeth. She had been reluctant going into the gym, and it was exactly for this reason, because this adrenaline is familiar, it’s the same adrenaline that came from people’s condescension and underestimation towards her when she ran jobs on the streets. They let their guard down because she looks small, she looks vulnerable, she looks safe.

Well, in the end, it doesn’t matter how much bigger a person is compared to her. All flesh gives way to a sharp knife.

For the next 15 minutes, she doesn’t let one single goal get past her.

The following week Natalie plays as a second string goalie in their school’s team.

Not everybody takes kindly to the change. Rick, a white boy who were meant to be the second goalie, takes to glaring at her, push her shoulder each time he passes her and muttering sexist stuff under his breath, low enough that Hernandez can’t catch it, but just loud enough that Natalie will hear it and have to grip her racquet more tightly.

The others aren’t any better. At practice they start to shoot for her body, rather than the goal, and she’s able to block most of them with the racquet, but some of them hit her, and they hit hard. There’s bruises forming on her chest and she isn’t able to drape herself over the table as she’s prone to do when she does her homework. When Maria catches her at the dinner table reading for yet another history teast, Maria smiles and comments that her posture is getting better. All Natalie can do is try to smile back and nod.

Maria’s answering smile reminds Natalie that it’s worth it. Natalie has taken Nora’s advice to heart to smile as if everything is okay, and it is okay. It’s okay. There’s finally some kind of routine in her life, and Natalie allows herself to think, if not forever, this tentative security that has somehow been gifted her, maybe it can last for some time if she tries hard enough. And it’s not even like the pain is anything new. If she had any palpable aversion of getting hit, that was learned out of her in juvie. 

She’s used to it.

She’s used to being the odd one out. She’s known as an outcast in school, a foster kid and a loner. She didn’t try hard to gain any friends or acquaintances at the beginning, figuring she would move soon enough, and now people seem to walk around her in the hallways and give her space. However much she tries to reach out, she’s always met by a wall.

On one memorable she sits down at the spare seat at the end of the table beside the other exy players at lunch. She leaned down to pull the zipper of how  and, as if planned, they all picked up their trays and left the canteen. People at the nearby tables looked at her with pity and when she met their eyes, they looked away. Natalie spent that lunch eating her sandwich in silence and resolutely not looking up.

Nora looks at her strangely sometimes, after the incident with Natalie suddenly being gone, and Maria and James panicking. It’s not anything dangerous in her gaze, Natalie thinks, but she looks worried. She starts asking Natalie about friends and plans after school, and she and Arif even shows ups at some of her practices. The high school team has their practice right after the junior team, so at first it’s convenient; they could all just take the bus together afterwards. And Natalie must admit that it’s nice to hear Nora and Arif cheering for her from the benches. The others aren’t as rash either, with spectators witnessing everything. 

It even gives Natalie the idea about telling Hernandez about the injuries she received from practice. He shows no expression as she describes it, only a tick in his jaw that belies his feelings. He must’ve talked to them afterward, because they began playing nicer by actually trying to score in the net, not on her face. It might also be because Hernandez begins to watch the practices like a hawk.

But then Nora’s teachers send a message to Maria that the quality of Nora’s school work is dropping, and Maria tells Nora to come back right after practice. Arif’s midterms are coming up, and Natalie tells Arif he’s better off following his sister’s example and to focus on his studies.

They get harsher at practice again.

She goes home that evening and tries to smile at dinner, tries to gather all her threads and hold the semblance of normalcy between her hands, even though it’s so fragile, so fragile. It’s hurts to breathe, because it moves her ribs and she’s sure they aren’t fractured, but they sure hurt as hell.

And then Maria mentions Stephanie over dinner and everything crumbles and comes crashing down on her head.

She manages to get to the bathroom, and there she locks the door before sliding down and curling up on the cold, hard tiles. It’s not like she didn’t know Stephanie wasn’t still in town. She knows that she is, knows because of how frequent her name pops up under dinner, knows that she sometimes even visits when Natalie’s away on her practice, because Nora and Arif mentions they’ve met and talked to her. Somehow, Stephanie always manages to be out before she comes home, and she tries not to think about it. Tries not to think about what it entails that Stephanie’s still in town, what implications that bore.

She’s here because of a connection to gangs in Detroit.

Did she not know? Natalie was sure she had to know. She can’t remember what exactly she told her, but Stephanie’s smart, a damned  _ journalist _ for crying out loud, if she couldn’t piece it together at first, she would have by now. A former gang member under her friend’s roof? She would get to know.

What Natalie can’t understand is why she hasn’t seeked her out yet. If anything, it looked like Stephanie was avoiding her. Or maybe there really isn’t anything. Maybe she hadn’t found anything, no ties to Detroit and she had realized this city was a simply a dead end.

Grasping that thought with desperation, Natalie sits there for hours, just trying to get her breath under control again so that it didn’t hurt her damn ribs anymore.

 

* * *

 

There’s an upcoming game and Natalie loses herself at practice, leaving herself too exhausted to think when she comes home. All other brain power is dedicated to try to get a passable grade in her own midterms. Stephanie remains a present, but unseen figure in her life, and Natalie thinks it’s better that way.

Natalie’s already been at two games with other school teams already. Hernandez didn’t let her play either time, citing that he wanted to keep his wild card as a secret until it was time to reveal her. She’s been at the practice before each of the two games, and compared to those, the practice this time is--and there’s no other word for it--a joke. 

Everybody’s lax and chatting while they pass each other the ball. The captain, Mike, isn’t scolding them, not even Hernandez, who’s the first to yell at them to get their speed up.  _ What do you all think this? Exy for old-age senior citizens? _

It all becomes clear enough soon enough, when Mike laughs and yells, “And she calls herself Dan! It’s like she wants so badly to be a boy!”

Natalie’s sitting on the bench this time around, and she turns to the other girl sitting beside her, a white girl named Claire, the only other girl on the team. “What are they talking about?”

Claire looks up from her phone to look at her with a twisted mouth. They don’t usually talk much, but Natalie’s never been unkind to her. In fact, she never paid much attention to her, just connected her with the fact that she and her shared the same gender in this otherwise very macho sport. Claire didn’t play much either, despite being very good when she placed the position of striker. Claire looks down at her phone again now, not answering Natalie and Natalie pushes herself from the bench, thinking that the conversation is done before it even started, but then Claire speaks up, her eyes on the court without raising her head. “Oh. Yeah. Danielle Wilds. She’s the new captain of the Hunters Pointe Bears.”

Natalie sits slowly down again and waits for her to continue, but when nothing else is forthcoming, she says, “So?”

Rolling her eyes, Claire tilts her head upwards and says, “So? Do you know how many exy teams there are with female captains?”

Natalie’s about to guess, but Claire pushes something in Natalie’s face before she can answer. When Natalie’s eyes are focused, she sees it’s her phone, and on the small screen, there’s a list of exy teams up, but the screen disappears as soon as it appeared. “None,” Claire says, clicking on her phone. “She’s the first one. And it’s pretty telling, all right? Hunters had some disastrous seasons since, since forever basically, and it’s like,” -- Claire shrugs -- “why not? They couldn’t get any lower if they tried, so why not become the first teams with a female captain? As they see it, they don’t have anything to lose.”

Claire glances down and then away again with a derisive snort. “Careful, Nat. You’re going to break the bench. Or at least put marks on them that’ll terrify the juniors.”

Natalie stills. Slowly, she releases her fingers from the death grip she has on the edge of the bench and puts her hands carefully in her lap. It’s an effort to keep her hands from not spasming. She clears her throat. “So?”

“ _ So _ , what?” Claire says. Gone is the nonchalant attitude. This time her voice has an edge of anger in it. “There’s nothing more to it. A female captain is a joke, that’s all there is to it. Do you know what they’re thinking out there, on the court? I’ll tell you. They’re thinking that no serious exy team plays around like how the Hunters is doing now.  _ So _ , the thing is, Nat, the team can’t be very strong at all, can it, if they’re that desperate?”

“That’s,” Natalie says.  _ Unfair _ , she doesn’t say, but Claire looks at her with a painful, self-deprecating smile as if she heard. 

“Yeah? Tell me more. That’s how the rules are,” Claire says. “Don’t act like you’re not playing by them yourself.”

_ Nat, that’s just how the rules are. But we could try to break them. _

“Nat, are you okay?” Claire says, suddenly a lot closer. “You just suddenly went deathly pale, I thought you were blacking out on me.”

Natalie shakes her arms and concerned looks away. “It’s still not right,” she says, maybe a little choked up still, as she looks Claire in the eyes. Claire opens her mouth, but nothing comes out and they keep looking at each other until Claire seems to get bored with the staring contest and goes back to her phone with an eyeroll and a sigh. Natalie looks over at the players on court, all tall, muscular guys, and looks over at Hernandez, and she thinks that he isn’t trying to save her for “last minute” or as a “trump card” at all.

She jumps up and is about to go to Hernandez, but before she goes, she turns towards Claire and says, “Don’t call me Nat.”

Claire doesn’t bother looking up, just says, “Sure thing, Natalie. Whatever.”

As soon as she’s in front of Hernandez, her anger depletes, and she’s unsure if she isn’t overreacting. She clears her throat though, and says, “Coach?”

Hernandez turns halfway towards her, his eyes still on the court. She cannot see what’s so important that he has to continue pay attention, all she can see is the players joking around and nudging each other, not even trying to look like they’re practicing, and suddenly she feels her face heat up again.

“I want to play,” she says. “I want to play at the game tomorrow.”

Finally he turns fully towards her with surprise in his every feature. She tries to recall if she’s ever made a request from him before, and can’t think of any. She usually goes where he points. 

He looks apologetic now when he says, “I’m sorry, Natalie. I already promised Rick and Connor would take this one.”

“Then,” Natalie says, “just this practice.”

Hernandez looks questioning at her for a second, before his face clears and he gestures towards the court. “Be my guest. Hey! Hey, Rick! Switch with Natalie!”

“Why?” Rick says, laughter still in his voice. “I’m still playing tomorrow, right? It’s good to get in the practice now, coach.” 

“At the rate you’re all playing right now,” Natalie says, her voice ringing out through the court, “it looks like you’re all preparing yourself to fall hard and lose big tomorrow.”

The mood immediately sours. 

Practice the last month has made Natalie reflexes much better. The last few practices she managed to dodge and evade all balls directed at her, all the while protecting the goal. She figures she’s much stronger as a player right now.

She figures wrong.

She doesn’t know if it’s because they pulled their punches lately, or if she overestimated her own ability, or if they’re just a lot angrier, but it seems like all hell breaks loose and there’s no rules anymore. There’s just a continuous hit after hit, and she begins to wonder if _ both _ teams are shooting at her. Towards the end, Mike tackles her towards the back of the goal, knocking her breath out and she even blacks out a second, at the overwhelming pain that blooms in her chest. Hernandez blows the whistle and cuts the practice short. If he didn’t, Natalie isn’t sure she wouldn’t have had to limp out of that court.

Hernandez knocks at the girls restroom afterwards. There’s somehow still no wardrobe for the girls, despite there being a handful girls playing, counting both the junior and high school team. He asks her if she would like a ride to a clinic to get looked at, but Natalie shakes her head and says she’s all right. He looks dubious, but he lets her go, making her promise to call if something happens on the way home. Natalie promises, and doesn’t tell him she doesn’t have a cell phone.

She skips dinner that night. Laying down on the bed, she prays to fall asleep so she can’t feel anything anymore. Eventually, she does.

 

* * *

 

Danielle--Dan Wilds is not what Natalie expected. Natalie doesn’t think she had any expectations at all, and yet Wilds still blew past them. She’s short, maybe, possibly an inch taller than Natalie, but still small where she stands between her teammates. She’s probably strong, she has to be, but her muscles isn’t anything particularly noticeable through her jacket and track pants. She’s put her hair up in twin buns, but when she turns around, Natalie sees some stray black hair strands curl around her naked face. She’s not what Natalie expected, but somehow she’s everything Natalie should’ve expected. Even from across the court, dozens of meters between them, Natalie can feel her laser focus as her gaze runs over Natalie’s team, how she’s sizing them up, her expression serious but still serene when Mike gestures something to her and the rest of the team falls over themselves laughing.

Wilds didn’t come here to kid around. Wilds came to win.

If that wasn’t apparent for some people to begin with, it quickly becomes so. Once she’s out on the court, it’s all in, all plugs out, everything on the table. The team moves easily around their captain and within the first quarter, they’ve scored two goals. 

“Yes,” Wilds says and punches the air. Her cheer rings throughout the court, and her team follows up and cheers with her, and then they continue to go on offence and offence and aggressively at offence. 

Sitting on the sidebench, Natalie looks at the game unfolding before her, completely transfixed. Her heart’s pumping so much she can feel it in her  _ teeth _ . When Rick lets another easy goal past him, she doesn’t realize she’s standing up before she feels a twinge at her chest from the sudden movement. She slowly sits down again, never leaving her gaze on the court, and the only thing she can think of is,  _ I want to play _ .

The thought surprises her. Exy has never been for enjoyment, never of pure want or joy for her. At first, in juvie, she played because it was a required of her to join an activity. Then she continued, because it was the most easy way to get out all the anger and pent-up tension. But she looks at Wilds’ face now, happy yet focused, and she knows everyone else in the audience is doing so as well, because everyone came here expecting that they’d have to look away once the girl captain broke down, crying. But Natalie knows the audience is holding their breath and following Wilds with their eyes because she can feel the anticipation prickling her skin and giving her goosebumps. They want the underdog to win. And Natalie wants to get out there, now. She wants to try. She wants to face Wilds and see what she sees. Wants to face someone who didn’t see lost hope, but an opportunity to grab a win in front of the arrogant guys, looking them right in the eye as they realize she’s crushing them.

“Mark my words; that girl is going to go far.”

Natalie starts, turning towards Hernandez, who she forgot sat beside her. He glances at her, and in answer of her silent question, nods towards someone on the court. “The captain. She’s good; very good in fact. Too bad her team isn’t.”

Natalie turns toward the court again and blinks. She sees what he means as soon as he points it out. Wilds is an excellent captain and dealer, but she’s been carrying the team this whole time by playing almost every other position as well. 

“Exy is a team sport,” Hernandez says, mirroring Natalie’s thoughts. “And no single person can be a whole team. She’ll run out of juice for the second half soon. And I think the guys in our team have finally woken up from the shock. The next half’s going to be ruthless.”

And it does. After Mike gets a swooping goal within the first minutes of the second half, the Bears seem to slowly dismantle and lose their winning streak. The players start to slow down, so much that it soons become clear that Wilds is the only to actually run and the only one to try to stop the opposite team from advancing. After that, it becomes painful, fast, to see the numbers of goals to the Tigers relentlessly tick up even as Wilds clenches her jaw in determination and continues to run herself ragged in her attempt to stop it.

“We can do it, Bears,” Wilds yells, lifting her racquet. “Come on, come one, come on!”

Natalie forces herself to keep her eyes open and watch it all. It shouldn’t matter, but maybe by forcing herself to watch, she can take some of Wilds’ burden, since she has no choice in whether to watch if fall apart or not. It’s a flimsy support, one that Wilds will never know, one Natalie isn’t even sure why she wants to give, but Natalie persists.

The game ends. 25-7 to the Tigers.

Wilds keeps her head high as she goes to greet the players from the opposite team and say “good game”. The captains are the last to shake hands, and Natalie doesn’t like the way Mike’s smiling at Wilds.

“Hey,” Wilds says as Mike turns away, raising her voice. She throws her helmet aside, walking up behind Mike to grab his arm. “Hey!  _ Hey! _ Try saying that again to my face, huh?”

Natalie’s up and going across the court before she hears Mike answering, but she’s still injured, and so she’s only able to take a hold of Wilds’ shoulders and push her away from the fistfight after Mike’s gotten some good punches in.

“It’s not worth it, okay?” Natalie says as Wilds tries to struggle away from her hold, snarling over Natalie’s shoulder at Mike. Natalie hisses sharply, when a movement jostles her shoulder too much. “Don’t,” she hisses involuntarily, and Wilds, maybe sensing something’s wrong, goes immediately still and takes a step back. “I’m sorry--”

Her mouth clicks shut when she notices Natalie’s blue uniform. Natalie ignores the surprising sting of hurt and looks over Wilds. She has a split lip, and she’s still breathing heavily from the game and the fight. If her skin was a little lighter, Natalie thinks her whole face would be noticeably red from the exhaustion and anger. But otherwise, she doesn’t look hurt.

“It doesn’t look like you’re hurt too much,” Natalie says, “but you should check by the nurse just in case. It doesn’t do if the captain gets hurt, right?”

As Natalie watches, Wilds’ face goes through a magnitude of a different emotions in a second, before settling on wary. “You,” she says, then shakes her head. Most of her hair’s loose from the ponytail she had tied before the game, locks curling wildly around her face, Natalie observes from a small place in her mind. “Thanks, I guess,” Wilds finally settles on.

“No problem,” Natalie says, but Wilds’ already out of the court.

 

* * *

 

The bus ride home is joyous, but Natalie sits in the front by herself, pretending to be asleep and trying to ignore the patronizing comments. The bus stops at school, and since the next bus home comes in two hours, Natalie decides to walk home. It’s already dark outside, but it shouldn’t take more than half an hour if she’s fast. The bruises makes her go a little slower, but the night is warm and she takes the opportunity to just let her mind relax for a minute.

There are lampposts on the sidewalk and lots of people still out. Frazzled students, young couples, a woman with a stroller. Natalie observes as she passes them by, until the people thins out, until there’s no one left, and only the cars passing by…

Her breath catches on her throat and her whole body tenses when she realizes that the sound she has been hearing for the past few minutes is the same car behind her. A car that’s trailing her.

She doesn’t go controlled down to her knees as much as she falls to her knees as if a puppet with her strings suddenly cut. She pretends to tie her shoes and curses her shaking hands when she can’t properly take hold of the shoelaces. The position makes her able to discreetly look behind her and see that the car is a dark van. She holds the position until it becomes clear that the van has stopped and isn’t going to drive past her.

Her heart picks up speed and she rises slowly, like she’s underwater. Her mind switches gears, and she starts to think about courses of actions. She could run, if she had to, but where to? If she ran home, she would lead them straight to Maria and Arif and Nora and James, oh god, oh god, but there’s a gas station just the other way and if she starts to run, the van will lose a few second turning around, and when she gets there she can ask the cashier about borrowing a phone and then she’ll call the police but then what,  _ then what, are they actually going to catch them, are they actually taking them off the streets, have they maybe already contacted others, what if they are determined to take me out, what if they have guns then it wouldn’t matter, yes it would because what if what if Nora and Arif is with me the next time, would it matter, yes it would matter, does it though, yes yes I can’t live if they force me to hear Nora make the same sound Eva did when she died, I have the knives, the knives are still with me and I can stab them, two, max three, I need to get out because I still haven’t given Eva her knives yet-- _

The van sounds closer, and Natalie tries to move her feet, bend her knee, move away, but the bottom of her shoes is glued to the asphalt, and then--

Then the van moves past her and she feels something cold splash on her.

“Ha!” she hears a familiar voice say, and she opens her eyes. Rick’s giving her an ugly grin from the back of the van, a bottle of beer in his hands. “Got you, bitch.”

The van races away with the sound of the guys’ laughter, and Natalie falls down again, holding around herself trying to warm herself up, though the cold isn’t from the air around her or the water over her. It’s from the ice running through her veins.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s just her luck that when she arrives at the apartment, in her hurry to get to her room unnoticed, she crashes into Stephanie on her way out. Right in her chest.

She blacks out for a second time, and when she comes to, Stephanie’s holding around her, shaking her slightly and saying, “Natalie? Natalie?”

“What?” she hears Maria’s frantic voice behind Stephanie. “Natalie, what happened?”

Natalie sits up, and Stephanie lets go of her, still looking her up and down, a worried expression on her face. She looks over her shoulder at Maria, who’s also looking worried and scared, and Natalie had sworn to herself she would never put that look on Maria’s face anymore.  _ Fail #1001 _ , Natalie thinks to herself, and she kind of wants to laugh, kind of wants to cry.

“Just,” Natalie says and is careful not to move her shoulders, “practice.”

Stephanie’s expression immediately shutters off. She looks over her shoulder at Maria and says, “I’m taking her to the nearest clinic. You stay and take care of the other kids.”

Maria looks like she’s about to protest, but then thinks better of it. She nods, her lips making a thin line, before she turns around and walks away.

Stephanie carefully pulls her up. She lets her go, but stays closely beside her the whole way as they make their way down to the parking. It’s a tense ride, but tense car rides are normal for Natalie, so she isn’t too wrapped up about it.

At a red stop light, Stephanie says, “Who did this to you?”

“No one,” Natalie says. “Normal practice.”

“Are you telling me,” Stephanie says, and it sounds like she’s talking through her teeth, “that this is normal? You coming back blue and yellow and drenched in alcohol?”

Natalie doesn’t answer, which is an answer in itself.

Stephanie takes a deep breath, which she slowly lets out again. “I’m talking to your coach. Tomorrow.”

Natalie wants to protest, say that it’s okay, it’s normal. But. But her ribs hurt and she kind of wants to puke because of how much it hurts, but at the same time she knows it will just aggravate the ribs further, but they’ve hurt non-stop for the past month, and all she wants is to breathe normally again. She wants to breathe, dammit!

She tries to control her breathing, tries to bite back the tears that seem to threaten to spill out. She’s not a crier. It feels like she’s cried more the last few months than the rest of her life, and in all instances, Stephanie seems to be the one to witness all her weaknesses. She doesn’t know if it’s a coincidence or what. If it’s easier to cry after the first time, or if there’s something about Stephanie that makes it easier to cry around her. That makes her think she will able to pick the pieces.

“It hurts,” Natalie croaks out.

“Oh, Natalie,” Stephanie says, and Natalie hates the pity, hates how sorry she feels. She doesn’t want to be weak in front of her, of anybody, in case they’d exploit that and use it against her. But this time it’s a relief. Someone at least cares enough to feel sorry for her.

“My ribs,” Natalie explains, looking strictly at the way in front of them, water in her mouth. “They’ve been bruised from practice since a long time ago.”

“It will be better, Natalie, I swear, it will be better.”

Stephanie helps her inside to the doctor that looks like she wants to say something about the knives strapped to Natalie’s arm when she takes of her shirt, but then she gets distracted by the blue and yellow across Natalie’s torso and she shuts up and gets to work.

Bandaged and feeling more stable, Natalie goes to sit on the sidewalk as soon as they’re outside. Stephanie promptly follows suits and sits with her in silence for what feels like hours.

“I thought they were going to kill me.”

Stephanie gasps, but Natalie continues before she can speak up. “The guys from the team... today they pulled a prank on me, I know that, but I thought they were someone else. Someone more dangerous. And I thought they were going to kill me.”

“And I thought,” Natalie continues, “I thought about going  _ home _ .”

Natalie looks over at Stephanie to see if she understood what that entails, but she frowns, looking slightly worried.

“I’ve never thought of Maria’s apartment as home before,” Natalie whispers.

Stephanie looks up at the sky and mutters something under her breath. 

“So, I thought about going home, and then I thought, what if they followed me home? What if they killed Maria and Nora, and Arif and James too?”

“Listen, Natalie--”

“No,” Natalie says. Stephanie’s eyes widen in surprise, but Natalie swallows and says, “Please. Just listen. I need to know what you’re doing here and who you know have ties to Detroit. I need to know.”

Stephanie’s silent for a moment. She narrows her eyes and says, “And what, dare I ask, would you do that with that information?”

Natalie bites her lips.

“Are you planning to go again?”

“You should’ve just let me go the first time around,” Natalie says, turning sharply away, feeling the anger rising in her. “Then I wouldn’t be in this state.”

Stephanie sighs. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Well, you wouldn’t be stuck here with me, at least,” Natalie says, kicking a stone in front of her. It very nearly hits a car.

Stephanie hums. “Do you mind that?”

“What? You being stuck with me?”

“Or the other way around, I guess,” Stephanie says and shrugs. “However we see it, right?”

Natalie shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t have any info on any current gang members from Detroit loitering around here,” Stephanie says, fiddling with something in the pocket of her jacket. In her hand she holds a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. 

“You smoke?” Natalie blinks as Stephanie lights one.

“Please don’t tell Maria or James,” Stephanie says as she puts the lighted one in her mouth, and puts the rest back in her pocket. “I was supposed to quit five years ago, and I reportedly was, but not really. I just have to take one when I’m stressed out. You smoke?”

“No,” Natalie says, and Stephanie nods gravely. “Good call, kiddo. Never start.”

“Anyway,” she continues, “where was I? Oh yeah, yeah, no info so far.”

“But there are ties,” Natalie prompts. “Or you wouldn’t be here.”

“You’re sharp.” Stephanie puffs out a white cloud. “Yeah, there are ties, but not the ones you think of. I’m looking into corruption of politicians and other high-profiled people.”

“But you can’t exclude the fact that there might be foot people here.”

“I can’t,” Stephanie reluctantly admits. “But Natalie, where are you supposed to go? You can’t exactly go off all these people yourself, don’t think I didn’t catch your implication.”

“Then,” Natalie says and throws her hands out, “what am I supposed to do? I’m not willing to put Maria and her lot in danger, okay?”

“I hear you,” Stephanie says, and then there’s just silence as they watch the cars pass by, first yellow light, then red lights. “Hey, I have an idea. But you need to be one hundred percent aboard, okay? This is just if you want to.”

Natalie tilts her head and looks at Stephanie to go on. She takes a long drag of her cigarette, which she exhales slowly, and Natalie’s eyes follow it, until it’s not distinguishable against the night.

“Natalie, what do you say about becoming a journalist with me?”

 

* * *

 

 

Stephanie’s apartment is a mess.

“Steph,” Maria says scandalized as she and Natalie steps inside. It’s smaller than Maria’s, and the mess makes it even smaller, papers and books and clothes scattered across every available surface. “Steph,” Maria yells again. “Where are you?”

They hear a thud and a muffled “ouch”, followed by hurried steps across the floor.

“Maria!” Stephanie says as she comes to sight, fixing her hijab where it looks a little askew on her. “And Natalie! Guys, weren’t you supposed to come…” She looks at her watch, and her face freezes.

“Four o’clock?” Maria says, rolling her eyes. “Which is now?”

Stephanie smiles sheepishly at Maria and holds her hands up. “In my defence, I was readying Natalie’s room?”

“For Christ’s sake, Steph,” Maria says, looking pointedly at the mess around them.

Stephanie gasps, acting mock shocked. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain, Maria? What is next, satanism?” 

Maria laughs and goes to hug her friend. “Just remember to clean after you now that there’s another person living here, okay? Now that there’s a chance that another person could be infected, you promise me you won’t let any fungus grow in here?”

“Why are you scaring the girl?” Stephanie says. She turns towards Natalie. “I have never let any fungus grow inside here, Maria’s a filthy liar.”

Natalie raises an eyebrow.

Stephanie looks disturbed. “Did you just give me attitude? Oh gosh, why?”

Maria laughs. She turns towards Natalie and asks, “Are you sure about this?”

Natalie nods, and Maria smiles. “Then I’ll see you later.” She lifts a hand up, but Natalie goes tentatively forward and gives her a brief hug. “Thanks,” she says, and after a moment she feels Maria hug her back and run a hand through her hair. Natalie can’t see her, but she feels like Maria might be smiling against her temple.

When Maria’s gone, making Natalie promise to call her on her new phone which Stephanie bought her and to say hi to Nora and Arif when they met at school and to come visit for dinners sometime, Stephanie smiles at her and asks, “Ready to see your new room?”

Natalie nods.


End file.
